Jeffrey Carter thinks the damage done to Chicago by the tax increase now being proposed would be as immediate as it would be lasting.
“If they pass this transaction tax, every single trading venue will leave town overnight,” Carter, a local strategic investor, told the Chicago City Wire. “As for the city income tax, I can’t think of too many people that would stay to be in the higher income bracket. It would destroy the city.”
Carter’s dire warning is in response to a recent group of progressive activists and union leaders banding together to push for added revenues for the city in the form of a “LaSalle Street tax” on financial transactions and a 3.5 percent tax on households with incomes of greater than $100,000.
Jeffrey Carter
According to Chicago Business, the plan also calls for the creation of a municipal bank that would assume the duties of investing pension funds and underwriting city bond issues.
In Carter’s mind, it all just spells more struggle and hard times for the city.
“I think the tax would be totally damaging,” he said. “It would hurt Chicago beyond repair.”
Carter added that he believes area residents already have enough to be concerned about given Springfield’s new political makeup.
"J.B. Pritzker is a socialist,” he said of the new governor. "It's all about more control over resources."
Carter said the list of candidates now vying for the office of mayor of Chicago also gives him reason for pause.
“How can the media, with a straight face, do reporting and say that Bill Daley is a reformer candidate after what his family has been done to the city of Chicago?” he said. “How can, with a straight face, the media talk about Susana Mendoza being a reform candidate when she’s in the back pocket of (House Speaker Mike) Madigan and he’s one of the most corrupt politicians in the state?"
A “LaSalle Street tax” is defined as a tax on “every trade running through the city’s futures and options exchanges.”
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