Cook County restores tax on parking apps
Unanimous board acted before Jan. cut took effect
Cook County commissioners voted nearly unanimously Wednesday to restore a 6 percent tax on parking reservations made through apps such as SpotHero that was set to be cut in January.
In October, the board voted to pass a measure changing how parking apps such as SpotHero and ParkWhiz are taxed. Instead of requiring that reservations made through parking apps pay a 6 percent tax to the county, the rate charged to parking garage operators, the ordinance made it so people using the app only pay 1.75 percent — the county sales tax rate. The new tax rate was set to go into effect Jan. 1.
But the board on Wednesday repealed the October ordinance. Commissioner Larry Suffredin said “taxes need to be both fair and uniform,” then said the October ordinance created “a very strange pattern which is neither fair nor uniform.”
Currently, and under Wednesday’s measure, the county tax will uniformly be 6 percent. Only Republican Commissioner Sean Morrison voted against Suffredin’s ordinance.
Board President Toni Preckwinkle said she always opposed the initial measure, which her administration said would cost the county $725,000 in lost taxes.
“Today’s repeal vote returns Cook County to the previous tax,” Preckwinkle said at a post-meeting news conference. “Let me be clear: Nothing has changed.”
Ahead of the vote, the repeal’s opponents worked hard to keep the October ordinance intact. But the repeal sailed through without debate by commissioners.
Before the repeal, Suffredin also said he wanted to sit down with various officials and stakeholders in the future to work something out.
SpotHero spokeswoman Natalie Bauer Luce said the company was disappointed by the move and said the decision “reintroduces confusion and ambiguity that the previous law sought to clarify for parking garage owners, valet operators and parking reservation apps.”
“It is clear we need to continue this important policy discussion that we have been engaged in for months prior to October’s vote so that the county can fully and definitively strike a legal balance that accurately reflects our business model and acknowledges that parking reservation apps don’t own or operate parking facilities. We take Commissioner Suffredin at his word that he wants to find a solution.”
In other news, Commissioner Alma Anaya introduced a bill to regulate how the Cook County sheriff’s office uses the Regional Gang Intelligence Database, including a requirement the sheriff notify people “of their designation into the gang database and be prohibited from sharing information with third parties,” she said.
Sheriff Tom Dart’s spokeswoman, Cara Smith, said her office is aware of Anaya’s ordinance and looks forward “to continuing discussions that we began with Commissioner (Jesus “Chuy”) Garcia about this important issue with (Anaya) and the (board).”
At her news conference, Preckwinkle said she finds gang databases “very troubling” and said she supports abolishing the city’s controversial gang database and the county’s.
“They profile individuals, it’s almost entirely black and brown people on these lists,” Preckwinkle said. “There’s no transparency about how you get on this list or how you get off.”
She also was asked whether the political materials found in an SUV used mainly by her security chief after it was abandoned in a bizarre November 2016 incident were hers. Twice she said no, and reiterated that she does not know how the materials got in the car.