Emanuel's plan to cut amusement tax for ticket resellers stalls

Mayor Rahm Emanuel's

plan to cut the city's amusement tax ran into a roadblock Wednesday from aldermen bracing for a painful rescue of the Chicago Public Schools.

Emanuel's 2017 budget changed the way the city's 9-percent amusement tax is applied to ticket resales.

Prior to that change, ticket resellers such as Gold Coast Tickets were required to pay the tax at the normal rate of 5 percent or 9 percent, depending on the type of event. But the tax applied only to the ticket markup. That resulted in what the city called "difficult calculations" and lost tax revenue.

The new plan simplified the amusement tax rate on ticket resales to a flat 3.5 percent on the full resale price, regardless of the markup.

The change was billed as "revenue-neutral," but it didn't turn out that way. The city got an unexpected windfall. To make it right and keep his word to ticket resellers, Emanuel wanted to reduce the revised tax from 3.5 percent to 3 percent for large events and 2 percent for smaller ones.

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