Chicago v. Kankakee

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Municipalities sued other municipalities to recover revenue under the Use Tax Act (35 ILCS 105/1). Use tax is imposed on the privilege of using in Illinois tangible personal property purchased at retail from a retailer outside the state. Retailers who have a sufficient physical presence in Illinois and have out-of-state facilities from which Internet, telephone, and mail-order sales are made of tangible personal property to be used in Illinois must collect use tax from the purchaser and remit the tax to the Illinois Department of Revenue (IDOR) to prevent avoidance of sales tax. The general rate for both sales tax and use tax is 6.25% of the sale price with 5% allocated to the state. For sales tax, the remaining amount is distributed to the municipality and county where the sale occurred. For use tax, the remaining share is distributed to Chicago, the RTA Fund, the Madison County Mass Transit District, and the Build Illinois Fund. The balance is distributed to all other municipalities based on their proportionate share of the state population. The Illinois Supreme Court reinstated the dismissal of the suit. IDOR has been vested, for purposes of plaintiffs’ claims, with exclusive authority to audit the reported transactions that plaintiffs dispute and to redistribute the tax revenue due to an error. In addition, under Municipal Code section 8-11-21, the General Assembly must give a municipality the right to bring suit about missourcing or misreporting of use taxes. View "Chicago v. Kankakee" on Justia Law