Roselle applies amusement tax to streaming services

Consumers of streaming TV shows, movies or sports will soon pay more for that content in Roselle.

Officials have increased the village’s amusement tax rate from 3% to 5% and agreed to apply it to streaming services.

The village joins a growing list of suburbs that have moved to tax streaming entertainment.

Wheeling recently approved a 4% tax on video or audio streaming services set to take effect Jan. 1. It also applies to online games available via rental or subscription models.

In August, Arlington Heights trustees decided to place a new 5% tax on streaming entertainment subscriptions to help pay the costs of six new paramedics. Supporters there have said the tax will help replace cable franchise fees and telecommunications taxes that have been declining due to cord cutting.

In Roselle, trustees have expanded the definition of the town’s amusement tax to include streaming services as part of its fiscal 2026 budget.

“It makes sense. It does not even seem like a new tax. It seems like just a reconfiguration of an old tax,” Roselle Trustee Tom Piorkowski said during budget discussions. “The analogy I would use is that it’s like as if we had a typewriter tax and now we have a computer tax, so I do not view it as any real change to our current operations, just capturing the new form of the same revenue stream.”

As a whole, “the board agreed that this year is a maintenance budget, meaning that we're maintaining our core services and our services from last year at the current level, and then using that upcoming year to really review the village's fees and taxes,” Finance Director Tom Dahl said.

Based on feedback from other municipalities and estimates derived from national averages of streaming service subscriptions per household, the updated amusement tax is projected to generate approximately $200,000 in additional revenue, documents state.

The village, however, acknowledged it will take time to notify all providers and for each one’s internal implementation process.

Village Administrator Jason Bielawski told the board in the fall the general fund faces an imbalance. In a letter attached to the budget proposal at the time, Bielawski cited several factors, including rising personnel costs.

“These costs are largely nondiscretionary and have continued to rise due to contractual wage adjustments, escalating medical insurance premiums, and pension obligations mandated by state law,” he wrote.

Bielawski also pointed to slower revenue growth.

“Inflation has stabilized, reducing the rate of sales tax growth, and state-shared revenues such as local use and personal property replacement taxes and cable franchise revenue remain in a steady decline,” he added.

· Daily Herald staff writers Christopher Placek and Russell Lissau contributed to this report