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City wants its 8% cut of online ticket resales
Chicago Sun Times ^
| February 8, 2006
| FRAN SPIELMAN
Posted on 02/08/2006 9:05:57 AM PST by george76
Chief Assistant Corporation Counsel Wes Hanscom told a City Council panel that City Hall is preparing to sue ticket resellers who make a killing on the Internet but leave taxpayers in the lurch.
The crackdown can't come soon enough for Finance Committee Chairman Edward M. Burke (14th).
He believes that as much as $16 million in amusement taxes is slipping through the city's fingers because of growing Internet purchases.
$4.2 mil. loss on Sox postseason?
"One registered ticket broker paid $140,000 in amusement tax on White Sox postseason.
EBay, it is estimated, is 20 times the size of that broker. That's $2.8 million...
If StubHub is 10 times the size of that broker, that's $1.4 million.
One day, StubHub had 882 tickets listed for a single Bears game, with an uncollected city tax of $17,950," the alderman said.
Last fall, the Daley administration filed a lawsuit accusing more than a dozen online companies of not paying proper taxes on hotel rooms they secure at discount rates.
On Tuesday, Burke made it clear he's not prepared to wait the years it will take for the hotel and ticket-broker lawsuits to make their way through the courts.
(Excerpt) Read more at suntimes.com ...
TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: burke; chicago; citycouncil; cityhall; daley; daleyadministration; edwardburke; edwardmburke; g75; internet; internettaxes; online; onlineticket; onlineticketresales; rats; resales; revenooers; stubhub; tax; taxes; ticketresales
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1
posted on
02/08/2006 9:06:02 AM PST
by
george76
To: george76
Let me see if I understand this correctly; somebody buys the tickets and pays a tax on them. Then, they turn around and resell the tickets and the city wants to tax them again. Am I correct, or do I not understand the process?
2
posted on
02/08/2006 9:08:07 AM PST
by
T.Smith
To: T.Smith
Government never ever has anough of your money.
You owe them.
3
posted on
02/08/2006 9:10:04 AM PST
by
Sometimes A River
(allow Common Sense and Faith to trump Logic and Reason)
To: T.Smith
A sale is a sale and a sales tax is a sales tax ... unless it's on the Internet. (However, if it's an in-state transaction, I believe it can still be taxed legally.)
Of course, in New York, we just call this scalping.
4
posted on
02/08/2006 9:10:58 AM PST
by
Tanniker Smith
(I didn't know she was a liberal when I married her.)
To: george76
Isn't Stubhub a ticket reseller? Doesn't he have to pay the initial tax up front, then sells the tickets at a premium (scalped) prices to buyers later. So if I read this right the initial tax isn't good enough, they want the scalpers to give them the 8% on top of the 8% they already received in the initial sale.
Greedy b@stards
5
posted on
02/08/2006 9:11:55 AM PST
by
Abathar
(Proudly catching hell for posting without reading since 2004)
To: T.Smith
Isn't that kind of like turning their ticket tax into a VAT?
6
posted on
02/08/2006 9:13:05 AM PST
by
ManORight
To: T.Smith
You have it right. greedy gov't.
What I don't understand is how you can get a hotel room to sell on the internet without paying taxes on it.
7
posted on
02/08/2006 9:13:30 AM PST
by
Lokibob
(Spelling and typos are copyrighted. Please do not use.)
To: george76
"
... City Hall is preparing to sue ticket resellers who make a killing on the Internet but leave taxpayers in the lurch."
Perhaps voting these parasites out of office isn't enough.
Perhaps we should start hanging them in public. Tax free, of course.
![](http://www.opinionjournal.com/images/storyend_dingbat.gif)
8
posted on
02/08/2006 9:14:07 AM PST
by
G.Mason
(Duty, Honor, Country)
To: T.Smith
"Let me see if I understand this correctly; somebody buys the tickets and pays a tax on them. Then, they turn around and resell the tickets and the city wants to tax them again. Am I correct, or do I not understand the process?"
You're just not thinking like a government man. You see, the ticket broker is entertained by their job of selling the tickets. So really, not only should the broker be taxed when they buy the tickets and the end user taxed when they buy the tickets; the broker should be taxed again when they sell the tickets. That goes on top of sales taxes, which are levied on purchases made with money left over from income taxes, often used for purchasing items subject to import taxes, transported by vehicles paying gas taxes, and produced by companies paying corporate taxes.
When you think about the number of times any given dollar gets taxed as its path through purchasing is traced, it's truly staggering. One wonders how anyone affords anything at all.
9
posted on
02/08/2006 9:14:07 AM PST
by
NJ_gent
(Modernman should not have been banned.)
To: george76
"On Tuesday, Burke made it clear he's not prepared to wait the years it will take for the hotel and ticket-broker lawsuits to make their way through the courts." I thought the President used this logic with terrorist phonecalls and there are people who want to impeach him for it now...
10
posted on
02/08/2006 9:14:14 AM PST
by
Abathar
(Proudly catching hell for posting without reading since 2004)
To: george76
They've never gone after this scofflaw:
11
posted on
02/08/2006 9:15:06 AM PST
by
Plutarch
To: G.Mason
"Perhaps we should start hanging them in public. Tax free, of course."
Even then, you'd be paying sales tax on the rope and income tax to the state and Federal governments on the money used to buy the rope.
12
posted on
02/08/2006 9:15:32 AM PST
by
NJ_gent
(Modernman should not have been banned.)
To: Acts 2:38
Chicago...never has enough of your money.
They lost millions of sales tax money per year when they denied Walmart a store location.
13
posted on
02/08/2006 9:16:41 AM PST
by
george76
(Ward Churchill : Fake Indian, Fake Scholarship, and Fake Art)
To: G.Mason
Like you could vote the Democrats out of office in Chicago.
To: Plutarch
Scalping tix in utah is legal.
15
posted on
02/08/2006 9:18:03 AM PST
by
Lokibob
(Spelling and typos are copyrighted. Please do not use.)
To: T.Smith
Sounds like the City of OKC. They charge you a
$5 permit to hold a garage sale and send you a tax remittance form to collect tax on your sales.
16
posted on
02/08/2006 9:18:04 AM PST
by
hayseed
To: hayseed
17
posted on
02/08/2006 9:20:28 AM PST
by
Lokibob
(Spelling and typos are copyrighted. Please do not use.)
To: george76
"We simply don't have the luxury in this economy to pass up any opportunity to collect what is due and owing to hard-pressed taxpayers," Burke said.
Burke cares about the "hard-pressed taxpayers" like Hillary cares about the children (that aren't aborted).
To: NJ_gent
POP!
Ya had to wake me up, right? ;)
![](http://www.opinionjournal.com/images/storyend_dingbat.gif)
19
posted on
02/08/2006 9:28:11 AM PST
by
G.Mason
(Duty, Honor, Country)
To: T.Smith
Let me see if I understand this correctly; somebody buys the tickets and pays a tax on them. Then, they turn around and resell the tickets and the city wants to tax them again. Am I correct, or do I not understand the process?
I don't think that's correct. I believe the "first" consumer is obligated to pay sales taxes, and subsequent resales are exempt. If you declare yourself a distributor or merchant, I believe you are sales tax exempt but then must collect sales tax when you sell the goods. At Sam's Club, you can declare yourself a merchant, fill out a form, and avoid sales taxes on the goods you buy if you are going to resell them. You aren't obligated to collect sales tax when you resell your car or any other item you own, are you?
20
posted on
02/08/2006 9:29:47 AM PST
by
armydoc
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