Chicago Real Estate Transfer Tax
Chicago has proposed increasing the transfer tax on sales of property, for example the buyer of a $300,000 home today pays $2,700 in transfer taxes. That amount would rise to $3,600 under the plan before the City Council. As someone who is in the market for a new place (as soon as the slide is complete), and who generally doesn’t like taxes, I am not a big fan of this.
However….it is to pay for the upkeep of the public transit system, which is in perpetual financial trouble. I know from experience that the public transit system is not well run. However, having workable public transit is essential to Chicago’s competitiveness - without it my employees cannot get to work. Public transit is the only way that we can maintain the population density that contributes to making us a world-class city.
If we cannot reform the CTA to make it more efficient we have no choice but to pay up to keep it running.
