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Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

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Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#141

Chicago is in the hole for nearly thirty billion dollars. They have been floating the idea of a ten billion dollar bond with the debt structured in a way which lets current politicians escape the fallout from its payment and not having to raise property taxes. The state of Illinois is not well off either with debts estimated at the low of one hundred thirty billion to two hundred fifty billion. An Illinois proposal j…

Hopefully the Fed can inflate away >50% of real pension liabilities.

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#142
post #15

For what it's worth - the title is a bit misleading. The tax began its life as an extension/adaptation of an existing 9% "amusement tax" on patrons of amusements (movie theaters, bowling alleys, etc) in the city. But until 2015 it only included physical businesses, not any of the new online replacements. The definition is now expanded to include online games, streaming movies, movie tickets sold online, etc. Also, th…

I was under the impression it was because the city finally collected on it, but I might be wrong.

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do the employees and employers not pay into a separate fund that cannot be touched? I fail to see how it's the fault of the pensioners. It's absolutely archaic if the future taxpayers have to pay for a retirees pension. In Canada we have pension funds that are separately funded entities that are payed into over an employee's career.

How do you ensure the funds are invested properly, and not in a nephew's real estate development project? How do you ensure the correct assumptions are used in calculating how much to contribute into the fund in the first place? You can adjust mortality tables and investment return assumptions to make the benefits seem cheaper than they are. The government can even choose to forego making their understated contributi…

i've noticed a lot of banks/hedge funds will invest in property tax certificates with a typical return of 18%, and then pay out a lower interest rate back to the customer... its alot safer to do it that way than to invest in randomly performing stocks or mutual funds.

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#144

Chicago is in the hole for nearly thirty billion dollars. They have been floating the idea of a ten billion dollar bond with the debt structured in a way which lets current politicians escape the fallout from its payment and not having to raise property taxes. The state of Illinois is not well off either with debts estimated at the low of one hundred thirty billion to two hundred fifty billion. An Illinois proposal j…

How can you be in debt for pensions of all things.

Get employee. Put money in pension fund. Let fund grow. Wait 20 years earn interest and pay employee.

end.

What you are describing is gross mismanagement of funds, and blaming the rightful recipients of funds for the existing.

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do the employees and employers not pay into a separate fund that cannot be touched? I fail to see how it's the fault of the pensioners. It's absolutely archaic if the future taxpayers have to pay for a retirees pension. In Canada we have pension funds that are separately funded entities that are payed into over an employee's career.

How do you ensure the funds are invested properly, and not in a nephew's real estate development project? How do you ensure the correct assumptions are used in calculating how much to contribute into the fund in the first place? You can adjust mortality tables and investment return assumptions to make the benefits seem cheaper than they are. The government can even choose to forego making their understated contributi…

Pension funds are a force on the stock market and have been for aeons.

Getting a fund to work is not hard, and given the massive economic growth that america has seen in the past 30 years alone, even the most conservative fund would be doing impressively well.

All of these things are easy.

The only thing which I have heard and seen which is a problem is people/politicians coming in and breaking the compact made with emoloyees 10, 15 years down the line.

At that point the fund gets drawn down and you can easily get a scenario like today.

The spenders are no longer in office and the obligations are coming Due.

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#146

Chicago is in the hole for nearly thirty billion dollars. They have been floating the idea of a ten billion dollar bond with the debt structured in a way which lets current politicians escape the fallout from its payment and not having to raise property taxes. The state of Illinois is not well off either with debts estimated at the low of one hundred thirty billion to two hundred fifty billion. An Illinois proposal j…

How can you be in debt for pensions of all things. Get employee. Put money in pension fund. Let fund grow. Wait 20 years earn interest and pay employee. end. What you are describing is gross mismanagement of funds, and blaming the rightful recipients of funds for the existing.

> Wait 20 years

That's the problem, politicians don't care about 20 years from now. They care about their next election.

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#147
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to agree, but there's a limit. Accepting a job where the payout promised requires an almost 50% property tax raise ? You can't possibly claim surprise when those promises are reneged on.

The current pensioners didn’t recently accept their job. They accepted it decades ago and it’s on the municipality to manage the funding.

A lot of the people paying these taxes never agreed to the other end of the bargain either? I mean, you can argue that this is an integral part of the social contract, but if everyone leaves Chicago because property taxes increase astronomically there won't be any tax payers to lecture about how they have to hold up their end of the one-sided bargain. And then the whole thing collapses anyway?

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here are numbers from the CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/updates/upd-2-12-18.html But as far as retiring when your fitness wanes. How is that any different than any other job that requires manual labor?

You're correct, it's not different. A lot of those jobs (construction, plumbing / steam-fitting, railworkers, auto plant workers) are unionized too.

Why does the fact that they are unionized matter? The police union is one of the strongest unions in the country and they will even protect obviously bad apples from prosecution. On the one hand, it's good to see unions protect their members, on the other police don't really need more protection from prosecution than they inherently receive just for being officers. It's pretty hard to prosecute an officer even when is obvious to most of society that they've done something wrong that any other person would get some form of punishment for simply because it's in the DA's best interest to not screw with the police, who they require assistance from regularly.

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#149

Chicago is a financial disaster and it's dragging Illinois into the fire. The situation is worse than detriot before it's bankrupcy. It's so bad that illinois is the only state in the union with a negative population growth. And, doubly, the only state to have that honor several years in a row. The debt is unsustainable and they tax everything. Just a few years ago they started taxing soda cans, and hybrids since "th…

> Chicago is a financial disaster and it's dragging Illinois into the fire.

Cook county (Chicago) and the 5 suburban counties contribute more revenue to the state coffers than the entire rest of the state combined. The rest of the state receives a higher share of that revenue than Chicago and its suburbs (ie - they get more than they put in). [1]

> The situation is worse than detriot before it's bankrupcy.

Highly subjective, but having personally lived in the Detroit area before its bankruptcy - and currently living in Chicago now - I disagree.

> It's so bad that illinois is the only state in the union with a negative population growth.

Not so. Multiple states have experienced negative population growth year over year; and multiple states had experienced it multiple years in a row. [2][3][4][5]

Your comment is demonstrably, factually incorrect. Please support your opinions with facts, or label them as your own opinions.

1. https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=105...

2. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1R7AN4o7m3coGcnWSJsKd...

3. https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2018/comm/popu...

4. https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2018/comm/popu...

5. https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/popest/2...

Re: Chicago successfully taxes streaming services

#150
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current proposed solution is just to cut back benefits on new job offers - though obviously if they cut back too much no one decent will want to work there.

Because there is some glut of smart qualified people gunning for those public sector jobs?

I've met plenty of idiots who worked in well-paid private sector jobs, and plenty of smart people who worked in government jobs.
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