Nearly 90% of Chicagoans surveyed want to tax corporations to expand city services, Mayor Brandon Johnson said Tuesday, promising to deliver what he can locally while asking the state to empower the city to impose more business taxes.
Johnson released a “budget engagement report” that he believes strengthens his hand in the battle for a pre-election budget with the renegade City Council majority that rejected his corporate head tax a year ago.
Of the 591 survey responses generated at five events across the city, 88% of those surveyed wanted the city to raise taxes on large corporations. No other options got more than 50% support, the mayor said.
Johnson vowed to “pursue the progressive revenue that’s needed to deliver” on those priorities.
“What remains to be seen is whether the corporate-aligned caucus will have the collective courage to choose the interests and priorities of Chicagoans, or choose to cower before the influence and campaign donations of corporations,” Johnson said.
Eight days before unveiling his 2026 budget, Johnson dropped his strongest hint yet that he would erase an $882.4 million budget shortfall by raising the same technology taxes he imposed last year to start shifting Chicago’s outdated tax structure to accommodate the digital economy.
Those taxes include the personal property lease transaction tax; applying the 10.25% amusement tax on sports bets and a tax on social media companies that is still the subject of a court challenge
The personal property lease transaction tax on vehicle and equipment rentals, car leases and cloud computing software was 11% just two years ago. It was raised to 15% last year and had already generated $737.6 million by August, exceeding expectations by $23 million.
The groundbreaking tax on social media is also doing nearly 60% better than expected, even though the windfall is being held in escrow.
Asked what taxes he could impose on corporations beyond renewing his failed fight for the corporate head tax, Johnson said the city’s power to impose business taxes is limited by state law.
“Our work should be centered around, not only challenging the ultra-rich and big corporations to pay their fair share, but… if the state of Illinois is not prepared to do that, then give me and other municipalities the authority to do it ourselves,” the mayor said.
Johnson said Chicagoans have “given me a mandate” to preserve and enhance the city services they depend on. But the state of Illinois “takes that authority away from the city of Chicago and other municipalities.”
“That’s why I believe that, if the state of Illinois is not prepared to do that, then they should provide local municipalities with the authority to find ways outside of PPLT, to find ways outside of the social media (tax) even when we’re talking about how we generate revenue from sports and gaming. These are corporations that have the responsibility to put skin in the game, but those limitations are what they are. They’re real,” he said.
The home rule authority that gives Chicago broad power to govern itself dates back to 1970 when Illinois adopted a state constitution.
It designated Illinois cities with more than 25,000 residents as home rule units and gave those cities broad powers to incur debt and to tax, regulate and license themselves without state approval.
But there are limits to that authority. Chicago can levy certain local taxes without state legislation or voter approval, but not others. An example was Johnson’s signature “Bring Chicago Home” proposal to raise the tax on high-end real estate transactions to generate $100 million a year to combat homelessness.
The mayor’s preferred option was to convince state lawmakers to raise the real estate transfer tax. When lawmakers refused and Gov. JB Pritzker gave the proposal the cold shoulder, Johnson had to seek approval from Chicago voters. The referendum failed after a big bucks campaign by real estate and business interests.
The limits to Chicago’s home rule powers also explain why the perennial idea of extending the state sales tax to professional services — with a potential annual yield of $305 million for Chicago — has gone nowhere for decades. It needs legislative approval and, so far, hasn’t gotten it.
Legislative approval would also likely be needed to impose the corporate payroll tax championed by the so-called “Institute for the Public Good,” a group of mayoral allies behind the failed “Bring Chicago Home” referendum.
The group has claimed that asking corporations with “more than $8 million” in annual payroll to pay 5% of salaries paid to employees earning more than $200,000 a year could generate a $1.5 billion annual windfall for the city.