Friday, August 18, 2017

1930's Germany like vengeance?

Toni the Taxer, and member of the Alt Left
BUMPED UP
President Preckwinkle has been making phone calls and trying to line up opponents for every Cook County commissioner that has not voted for her soda pop tax. Many of the people that got those phone calls have talked. Nice.

Cook County has launched what a judge has called an “unprecedented” and “chilling” attempt to force an industry group and six supermarket companies who challenged the county’s new so-called “pop tax” to potentially pay the county at least $17 million for suing and securing a restraining order which delayed the implantation of the tax by nearly a month.
On Aug. 1, lawyers for the county filed a petition on behalf of the county’s Revenue Department, asking the court to award the county
damages for the tax collections missed while the judge determined whether the tax was legal and constitutional.
In a discussion before the bench concerning that petition on Aug. 1, Cook County Circuit Judge Daniel Kubasiak said he was giving the county two weeks to come up with prior court cases and decisions that would give the county any kind of legal leg to stand on to demand such a response to the legal challenge brought by taxpaying business owners and their representatives.
“Now, I've reviewed as best as I can in the short amount of time that this matter was presented to me, the cases that are on point somewhere here, the cases that I could find. I could find no such case of a governmental body suing a taxpayer who had challenged a tax. I can tell you that I am troubled by this, the chilling effect of the government saying that you best not challenge us because if you are proven wrong we will come and get damages from you,” Judge Kubasiak said during the Aug. 1 hearing, according to a transcript of the proceedings obtained by The Cook County Record.
Speaking to the county’s attorney, the judge added:  “… I would like to find any argument that you can make that will support the notion that a taxing body can sue for damages if, in fact, a party asserts their rights under the Constitution to challenge that tax and then is ultimately dismissed.”
The judge gave the county until Aug. 15 to file a memorandum with the relevant case law to back their assertion they are owed money from the grocers and the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, which brought the legal challenge to the court.
Late last year, the Democratic-controlled Cook County Board, at the urging of Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, had enacted the ordinance establishing the tax, saying the tax would both discourage consumption of sweetened beverages, such as soda, thus improving public health, while helping the county government close a budget hole, by raising as much as $200 million in new revenue.
The tax would apply to sweetened beverages, including regular and diet soda, as well as sweetened tea and coffee beverages, among many others. The tax would apply to those sold in bottles and cans, as well as fountain beverages and other drinks sold in non-pre-measured containers. However, the tax would not be applied to made-to-order sweetened beverages, such as those made by a barista at Starbucks or other similar shops.
In late June, IRMA and the grocers – including the operators of Berkot’s Super Foods; Fairplay Foods; Food Market La Chiquita; Tony’s Fresh Market; and Walt’s Food Centers – filed suit in Cook County Circuit Court, asking the court to bar the county from collecting its 1 cent per ounce tax on sweetened beverages sold in the county.
The retailers argued the the ordinance was poorly written, leaving businesses attempting to collect the tax at grave risk of running afoul of federal food stamp rules and of being sued, in addition to potentially being fined by the county for not collecting the proper amount of taxes.
Kubasiak initially granted a temporary restraining order, delaying enforcement of the tax.
On July 28, however, the judge lifted the TRO, saying he believed the ordinance was, in fact, constitutional.
The retailers have appealed that decision.
However, in the meantime, the county has launched an effort to force the grocers and IRMA to pay them back - potentially as much as $17 million, which is the amount they believed the county would have collected had collection of the beverage tax not been blocked for a month.
In statements on July 28, Preckwinkle said the lost revenue forced her to lay off hundreds of county workers and could force other cuts.
The judge, however, indicated he was skeptical of the county’s gambit.
The judge indicated he believed the restraining order was appropriate, given the concerns expressed by the retailers and the county’s failure to present “a reasonable plan” to refund any collected tax money, should the tax be struck down.
“The mere fact that the County is prepared to put this into a protest fund was nice but it was woefully insufficient to address how the monies might have been refunded,” the judge said. “I think the TRO was not only appropriate but was necessary.”
He also brushed aside the county attorney’s attempt to pin the blame for the mess on the decision by the retailers to wait to file suit until days before the tax was to take effect, noting the county also agreed to continue proceedings until at least mid-July.
Further, he noted, a state appeals panel also didn’t overturn the TRO when the county appealed Kubasiak’s initial approval of the restraining order.
“There's nothing in the Code of Civil Procedure that says that a party needs to file at any particular time,” the judge said. “They have a right to file any time.”

26 comments:

  1. Anonymous8/06/2017

    Never ever elect another Democrat.

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  2. Anonymous8/06/2017

    sig Heil

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  3. Anonymous8/06/2017

    What a cold, vicious, evil hater who is also a control freak. "If people want services, they have to pay for them"....no you are really saying we have to pay MORE for those services, and MORE, and ever MORE. I will not pay this crazy tax....I will drink water or coffee....you will get NOTHING from me Communist

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous8/18/2017

      What was so bad about Todd Stroger?

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    2. Anonymous8/18/2017

      Todd didnt have enough time to implement it himself.

      Delete
  4. Anonymous8/06/2017

    The "effing" S.O.B.'s ought to be driven for office. They should hook Preckwinkle to a polygraph and ask her about the motivation for this tax being her concern for the health and well being of persons with sugar related illnesses. If she were that concerned about their health, she may have adopted a public service campaign discouraging the purchase and consumption of these drinks. I'm almost biting through my tongue right now. This phony Cant Understand Normal Thinking!

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous8/18/2017

      Its all about the patronage

      Delete
  5. Anonymous8/06/2017

    Sorry, but I still say that ugly Janet Reno was better looking than this pig.

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  6. Anonymous8/06/2017

    MAJOR CHILLING EFFECT

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  7. Anonymous8/06/2017

    For now on, you cannot disagree with the government? These people are nuts and need to be removed.

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous8/18/2017

      Tom Dart should run now.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous8/18/2017

      Like he ran before? you know when he ran and hid under his bed while Black Lives Matter communist haters were descending on his own neighborhood? He is not going to run. He doesn't have the stomach for actually having to defend himself and his screw ball positions from scrutiny. Yes the media kneel down before him, send him their children for him to hire, all the while ignoring his many, many, bad decisions and record law suits. but someone else will want the job and they will paste him good.

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    3. Anonymous8/18/2017

      Why would Dart be better? He secretly lights candles and worships at the same altar of Socialism that Toni Taxwinkle worships. It certainly wouldn't mean jobs for 19th Warders. He has already shown he is no friend of ours.

      Delete
  8. Anonymous8/07/2017

    Black Guns Matter

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous8/18/2017

      OD and Desert tan too!!

      Delete
  9. Anonymous8/07/2017

    You keep voting democrat and then you bitch when they raise your taxes, now that's the definition of insanity or is it stupidity.

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    1. Anonymous8/08/2017

      I hope by "you" - you mean the local 19th Ward "Proud Union Homes" and the city govt bubble world two pension families living with their two shiny new cars - their big home addition and every toy imaginable who owe their entire existence to their rotting political party whose leaders secretly hate everything about them? No worries as the black political muscle gains more control over our area, you will be pushed out of power by the very people you have empowered. Fools. Diversity, once power shifts - will not include you.

      Delete
  10. Anonymous8/18/2017

    What would you expect.

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  11. Anonymous8/18/2017

    The waste at Cook County is out of control.

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  12. Anonymous8/18/2017

    Preckwinkle would like us to think she had no choice but to reach into the pockets of everyone living in or just passing through Cook County with the worst kind of regressive tax. But she did have a choice, and she does have a choice. She can—and she should—renegotiate those increasingly costly union contracts. And she can—and she should—undo this onerous soda tax once and for all.

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    Replies
    1. Anonymous8/18/2017

      Most of these unions are not bona fide in the traditional sense meaning they don't represent hard working women and men. They represent a bunch of loafers. Highly paid loafers.

      Delete
  13. Anonymous8/18/2017

    Preckwinkle has become a socialist dictator. Bad for democracy and bad for Cook County. She needs to be ousted.

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    Replies
    1. SOMEBODY PLEASE RUN AGAINST HER

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  14. Anonymous8/18/2017

    I plan to vote Against Every One Who Voted FOR the tax!!!

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  15. Anonymous8/18/2017

    Not to worry, the 19th Ward will assure that there are many candidates for the Office, then Tony is a shoe-in. It's Chapter 3 in the Mayor Richard J. Daley book, How to run(or is it ruin) a city.

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  16. Anonymous8/18/2017

    http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/08/13/texas-police-chief-asked-to-leave-doctors-office-for-carrying-gun.html

    ReplyDelete