Towns rushed to get video gambling tax on books. The rollout hasn't been as swift
Implementation of a penny-per-push tax on video gambling machines by suburbs that adopted it generally hasn't been as swift as last fall's rush to get it on their books before a state legislative deadline.
Many that stayed ahead of the Nov. 1 cutoff approved language with a default effective date of May 1.
But last week, Schaumburg's finance, legal and general government committee recommended deferring implementation indefinitely. If formally approved April 12, discussion of the tax would not come before the village board until a member asked for it.
Schaumburg Trustee George Dunham, who chairs the committee, said the village board's adoption of the controversial tax last fall was to ensure it would remain an option beyond the legislature's deadline.
"It wasn't necessary at the time and we have no plan to implement it, but we're able to do so if the need ever arises," he said.
Waukegan and Oak Lawn were among the municipalities that came up with the idea for the tax last year to raise more revenue. When a state bill was passed setting a deadline for others to follow suit, some did so while the decision was still theirs to make.
Under state law, 5% of gambling machine revenues go to municipalities, 25% goes to the state, and the Video Gaming Terminal Central Communication System, to which all machines in the state connect, collects 1%. The remaining 69% is split evenly between the machine operator and the establishment hosting the machine.
The push tax would provide another penny to the municipality's share every time a player presses the button on a machine.
The Support Main Street Illinois Coalition, which opposed the tax for the impact it anticipated on already struggling businesses, said implementation remains a logistical issue as well as one of individual policy.
Travis Akin, co-director of the coalition, said software doesn't yet exist to effectively charge the player an additional penny. He added that some establishments in towns already enacting the tax have made a nod toward compliance by putting out jars for players to drop coins into.
"What we're hoping happens here is that people understand the difficulty of collecting the tax and continue to defer," Akin said.
In the case of municipalities that already have approved collection of the tax, he hopes more will follow the examples of Galesburg and Pekin and repeal it.
Hanover Park began implementation of the push tax on Jan. 1 in an effort to stave off an increase in property taxes. And Mayor Rod Craig said he's not been amused by efforts to pay for what's calculated to be thousands of dollars of monthly push tax revenue with a few dollars worth of pennies in a bag.
"They're playing games with us," Craig said. "I look at it as a protest by them. We're sending them a bill with a late fee."
Craig emphasized that he doesn't interpret the businesses t to be on the hook for the tax. But while some were able to count how many pushes they had in a month, others said they couldn't despite the machines being manufactured by the same company, he said.
At one business in the village, the January amount of the push tax was calculated at about $7,500. But by the due date of Feb. 20 the village had received only about $2.14 in pennies, he said.
"My village doesn't need higher property taxes," Craig said. "The gaming people are becoming millionaires. I want to put this problem behind us. I don't want to be taking people to court. I'm not losing any sleep over their losing a few dollars."
Mount Prospect and Hoffman Estates are other villages that adopted the tax with tentative May 1 start dates. Officials said the issue will be back before those two village boards in the near future.
Wheeling also adopted the tax last fall but without any defined starting date. Village Manager Jon Sfondilis said Wheeling expects to defer any further action until after pending litigation against the tax in Waukegan and Oak Lawn has been resolved, per a recommendation from the Illinois Municipal League.