Title
A RESOLUTION TO SUPPORT LITIGATION AND LEGISLATION TO ADDRESS CURRENT ISSUES RELATING TO THE COLLECTION OF SALES TAX RECEIPTS
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WHEREAS, the proper accounting and collection of sales tax receipts is critical to the fiscal health of the Village of Orland Park and its ability to provide necessary services to its residents, taxpayers and the local businesses, their employees and customers; and
WHEREAS, it has recently come to light that at least two municipalities, the City of Kankakee and the Village of Channahon, have entered into sales tax rebate agreements with private tax consultants representing businesses located in Cook County and in certain municipalities such as the Village of Orland Park, Illinois; and
WHEREAS, because sales tax is assessed at the acceptance location in Illinois, the tax consultants have established sham sales offices that allow their business clients to record the sales transactions as having occurred in those two municipalities when the actual sales are taking place in a Cook County municipality; and
WHEREAS, this scheme is intended to unlawfully divert the municipal share of the statewide sales tax to the City of Kankakee and the Village of Channahon, denying it to the municipalities where the participating businesses actually conduct business and receive government services and depriving these communities of legitimate tax revenues under its own locally-imposed retailers’ occupation tax; and
WHEREAS, the City of Kankakee and the Village of Channahon benefit by taking a percentage of the tax on each sale, leaving a small portion of the collected tax for the tax consultants and giving most of what is collected back to the businesses, thus depriving municipalities, where the sales transactions are actually occurring, of their rightful sales tax revenue; and
WHEREAS, municipalities incur and invest tremendous resources in constructing and maintaining infrastructure and providing public services to support “bricks and morta...
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