Chicago council committee rejects mayor’s proposed tax hikes
[November 18, 2025]
By Jim Talamonti | The Center Square
(The Center Square) – The Chicago City Council Committee on Finance has
rejected a package of higher taxes proposed by Mayor Brandon Johnson.
After the committee voted 25 to 10 against Johnson’s revenue package
Monday afternoon, the mayor refused to back down from his proposed
corporate head tax.
The mayor’s plan would impose a $21-per-worker monthly tax on businesses
with 100 employees or more, although there have been discussions about
some workers being exempted. A business with exactly 100 employees would
pay $2,100 a month, or $25,200 annually.
Johnson said Chicago’s elevated number of downtown office vacancies are
not a result of high taxes.
“The reason why, first of all, the vacancy exists is because, obviously,
we’re still recovering from the pandemic. There is no correlation
between taxation and the success, if you will, of corporations,” Johnson
said.
Reed Smith partner David Dorner said a head tax is not the way to bring
people into Chicago.
“I think it’s going to keep people out of the city when we want to bring
them back in and have people working here, coming downtown, visiting the
downtown businesses. You don’t want to give them a reason not to come to
the office, and that’s what the head tax would do,” Dorner told The
Center Square.
In addition to the corporate head tax, the mayor’s $16.6 billion
spending plan includes new taxes on social media, sports betting and
boat mooring.
Dorner said the mayor’s cloud tax, or lease tax, would affect the lease,
rental or use of computer software or cloud infrastructure.
[to top of second column]
|
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson speaks at the Illinois State Capitol
on Wednesday, April 30, 2025. Photo: Greg Bishop / The Center Square
“As you can imagine, businesses today spend a lot of their budget on
technology, including software as a service, and that’s going to be
subject to this higher tax if it’s passed by the city of Chicago.
It’s already at 11%. It wasn’t too long ago it was at 9%,” Dorner
explained.
Dorner said increasing the tax to 15% would impact businesses and
individuals who pay for software licenses.
The mayor was asked about opposition to the cloud tax from small
business owners and aldermen.
“First of all, it doesn’t affect working people the way in which
it’s being described. We’re talking about an industry that’s making
more money than they even imagine,” Johnson said.
Johnson insisted that a corporate tax would stay in his budget and
promised to veto any budget with a property tax increase. He also
promised to veto any budget that included layoffs.
The city council’s budget committee cancelled its scheduled meeting
Monday afternoon after the finance committee defeated Johnson’s tax
package.
As of late Monday afternoon, the full council was still scheduled to
meet Tuesday morning.
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved |
