Daley Tax Sacks Bears Fans
Season-ticket taxes
By STEVE RHODES
Updated 9:08 AM CST, Fri, May 22, 2009
The city's quest to find tax revenue in every nook and cranny of the city took officials to Soldier Field this week, where they found some pigeons ripe for the plucking: the season-ticket shakedown has begun.
"Personal Seat License" holders will now be retroactively responsible for paying a 9 percent amusement tax on any licenses sold.
Season-ticket holders are livid, but the city says it always intended to levy the tax.
It just coincidentally didn't get around to it until now.
"PSLs were first sold by the Bears prior to the 2003 season to subsidize the cost of a newly renovated Soldier Field," the Tribune reports. "The initial licenses, which applied to nearly half of 61,500 seats, cost between $900 and $10,000, but sales records indicate they have increased in value threefold in some cases."
The licenses give holdes the right to then buy season tickets - which are already subject to the amusement tax.
""We don't consider it double-taxation," revenue department spokesman Ed Walsh told the Sun-Times. "Our position is, the license is part of what you're paying to access the amusement. There's the ticket amount and the PSL. The total is what's subject to the tax."
Yes, but has it ever cost so much to access amusement around here?
"The city of Chicago is strapped for cash and seeks to take advantage of a group that won’t get any sympathy with the public, but it’s flat out wrong to seek taxes years after the fact," boomer writes at Bear Goggles On.
One thing's for certain: Da Mayor must be desparate if he's socking Da Bears with Da Tax.
And that's not amusing at all.
Steve Rhodes is slightly amused, but not enough to be taxed for.
Copyright NBC Local Media
First Published: May 22, 2009 8:07 AM CST
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