Tax Candi

I am a woman, therefore, it almost goes without saying that shopping is a favorite pastime.   Growing up in Dallas, and now living in Chicago, I've always enjoyed great shopping opportunities. 

Now, Chicago has two substantial disadvantages from Dallas: 

1. Walking around Magnificent Mile is unpleasant due to weather for 3/4 of the year, and
2. a 10.25% (9.75% come July) sales tax.

Today, Cook County helped lessen consumer's burden, the county also passed an incentive just over a year ago to attract and maintain major retail projects called, fittingly the...

Cook County Retail Economic Development Incentive

The incentive is fairly easy to understand and compute:  In order to entice major retailers (or shopping centers) to locate within Cook County, rather than locating to a collar county with significantly less tax rates, Cook County and the municipality can rebate a portion of their sales tax revenue from the project with the retail.  (Cook County's participation is dependent upon the city's.)

 The portion rebated is negotiated, and the process to apply for this incentive is rather lengthy (much like the Class 7B property tax abatement).  Cook County's Department of Planning and Economic Development oversees the applications, and they require a number of analysis, including a persuasive argument that without the sales tax revenue rebate, the project would not locate within Cook County.  (But retailers, since you're not actually paying the sales tax out of your own pocket, its really no skin off your nose to collect an extra 2+% from your customers and recieve up to 50% of that back!)

Eligible companies must demonstrate that they will create or maintain jobs and increase sales tax revenue.  Additionally, the rebated money cannot go back into profits, but instead must be used to pay for improvements, expand operations, or increase inventory, etc.