CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) - Retailers are none too pleased that one of Mayor Brandon Johnson’s tax generating proposals may leave store owners holding the bag.
The head of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association (IRMA) is blasting the mayor’s newest budget proposal and says his group will lobby Chicago alders to reject a number of items.
One of those proposals is to take away from retailers the two cents they get for every bag that’s provided to consumers to carry the items they buy. The total bag tax is seven cents and the city currently gets five cents. Mayor Johnson now wants the City to get all of it to bring in an extra $4.5million.
Rob Karr, the president and CEO of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, says the city is not taking into account what it costs retailers to keep track of all those bags, the ones that land in consumers’ shopping carts, those that are exempt from the tax for people who get WIC and SNAP benefits and those that are damaged or unusable.
“They’re just shifting their costs onto retailers. It seems odd given the money involved that they seem to be going out of their way to stick their finger in the eye of the retail community,” he tells WBBM.
“It essentially puts the retailer in the position of having to prove a negative. We’re going to try and educate council members and others about why this is really a bad idea building upon other bad ideas,” he added.
Karr says those other “bad ideas” include the mayor’s proposed property tax increase that will impact his members and his proposal to increase the tax on beer, wine and liquor.
Karr says such a tax increase would cause retailers to lose sales, not only beer, wine and other alcoholic beverages but on other items people buy when they go out for their adult beverages.
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