By John Di Leo -
Like many Chicagoans, I live in one county and work in the next one. So, sometimes I do my shopping near home, and sometimes I do my shopping at lunchtime, near wo
I'd rather not do it at lunch, frankly, because I don't have time for long lunches. The modern economy requires people to stay at their desks and work full days, sometimes very long hours, so people are now much more likely to pack a lunch than in the past, or to just duck out for fast food and head back to the office.
The new Cook County beverage tax has kicked in, though, so some of us don't have a choice anymore. Instead of shopping at home in the evening, I shopped in DuPage county at lunch yesterday. This means that the sales tax on my purchase was just 7.5% instead of Cook County's 10%, and there was no penny-per-ounce beverage tax at all.
Now, my shopping list happened to include two cases of Arnold Palmers, three cases of Diet Dr. Pepper, and two cases of La Croix.
(In theory, the La Croix should be exempt from the new Cook County Beverage tax, but many places are charging it anyway because they can't figure out how to program their systems to assess this convoluted tax on the right products. This, by the way, is one of the most challenging aspects of the tax; it isn't set up to work rationally with any automated cash registers. You have to understand exactly how this tax works; good luck with that.)
In the end, my bill for this batch of stuff – basically drinks and pet supplies - came to $61.39, since I bought it in DuPage County. It would have been about $70 if I'd waited a few hours and purchased on my way home, at the Cook County end of my commute.
Now, let's assume that the prices on all these things would've been identical at my local Walmart (it's doubtful, since it's in Cook County and their deals on this stuff usually aren't as good as Meijer's, but let's just assume)…
This same order would've had at least $8.20 in additional taxes. That's another buck in the regular sales tax (10% instead of DuPage's 7.5%), and another $7.20 in the new beverage tax…. at a penny per ounce for five twelve-packs of canned diet drinks.
Now, let's keep doing math. There were two cases of sparkling water, which we all think is supposed to be exempt, but which a lot of places charge the tax on. So there might've been yet another $2.88 on top of it, depending on where I bought it. I haven't counted that, but it's another possibility.
Now, I don't want you to think of this as my saving $8.20 or maybe eleven bucks. That's not the point. The important point is that I never allowed the difference between DuPage's 7.5% tax and Cook's 10% tax to change my behavior before. There was ALWAYS a difference, but I didn't think it big enough before. Now, with the Democrat's new beverage tax in place, it is. Without a doubt.
So the important point – the larger lesson for everyone, not just for me personally - is that Cook County's new tax has been a windfall for this DuPage County Meijer (and for all the collar counties' stores). In this case, this Meier picked up a sixty dollar order from me that would otherwise have gone to a Cook County Walmart.
So the Cook County Board, directly cost a Cook County Walmart a sixty dollar order.
And it also cost itself some taxes, too.
Remember, Cook County would have gotten over five bucks in taxes on this order if I'd bought it in Cook County… but the Cook County Board of Confiscators' avaricious effort to pick up yet another seven bucks on this order, on top of the five it would normally get – has in fact backfired terribly, causing the broke Cook County government to lose five.
I can't stress this enough: Cook County was trying to get twelve bucks in taxes on an under-$60 purchase. That's over 20% in taxes. So they didn't just fail to get the additional seven their greedy little paws had expected, they lost five that they would've gotten, normally, if they'd just left it well enough alone!
Now, if this were just one order, once in a blue moon, it would be meaningless.
But this is the way people live, and how we shop. We – the people – are changing our patterns now.
There are hundreds of thousands of people who live and work in different counties, and who can shop at whichever end of their commutes makes the most sense.
And there are also hundreds of thousands of Cook County residents who don't work in Lake, DuPage, Kane, Will, McHenry, or Indiana… but who live close enough to the periphery that it's worth the trip across the county line to change stores.
Toni Preckwinkle, the president of the Cook County Board of Confiscators, has almost singlehandedly caused millions of transactions per year – yes, millions, this is no exaggeration – to leave Cook County and take place in another county, or maybe even in Indiana or Wisconsin instead.
This imbecilic tax, exactly as we all predicted, will eventually cost thousands of people their jobs, as less business at grocery stores and big box stores and fast food places causes those people to have to lay off cashiers, stock boys, waiters and waitresses, and department managers.
Possibly not thousands, by the way. I am a conservative; when I make predictions, I try to be cautious. But you've seen the numbers, and we've seen the actual results from Philadelphia, where this moronic experiment was tried a year earlier. It's probably likelier that tens of thousands of people will lose their jobs in Cook County as a result.
The Left believes in a zero sum game – the concept that the money available is fixed, and the government can always just grab a bigger handful.
They are soon going to learn the error of their ways… to their dismay.
And to the severe pain of many innocent people who didn't even vote for them.
Copyright 2017 John F. Di Leo
John F. Di Leo is a longtime Cook County resident, an actor, writer and trade compliance manager… and you have now learned that he drinks diet soda, eats potato chips, and has pet cats. Permission is hereby granted to forward freely, provided it is uncut and the byline and IR URL are included.
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