Western Springs Likely To Keep Grocery Tax

WESTERN SPRINGS, IL – Western Springs officials are poised to keep the grocery tax, following many other towns.

Last year, the state legislature decided to do away with the state's 1 percent grocery sales tax starting next January. Money from that tax has gone to the state, but is sent back to the towns where it is generated.

The state gave towns the power to keep the tax locally.

Most states don't charge grocery taxes, with the belief that government shouldn't tax such necessities.

If the tax were to go away, Western Springs said it would lose $500,000 in annual income. That amounts to 4 percent of the money in the village's main account.

"It's instrumental to our budget," Trustee Karen Martin said at Monday's Village Board meeting. "We rely on this money, so I think we all know how important it is to keep the status quo as much as we can."

According to the village, 288 other Illinois municipalities have already decided to keep the 1 percent tax.

But some are letting it disappear. Darien, for instance, is raising its home rule sales tax by a quarter of a percent to offset the lost income. That tax mostly exempts food at grocery stores.

Western Springs cannot follow suit because it is not home rule.

The Village Board is set to vote on the grocery tax next month.