Taxpayers vs. shoppers

May 14th, 2008 at 12:04pm Alex Gary

As part of Chuck Sweeney’s assignment of this project, we requested Rockford city audits back to 1980. I’m about 2 percent into the data and already one statistic jumped out at me.

In 1980, 48 percent of the city’s local tax revenue came from property taxes — $9,920,816 in property taxes out of $20,590,060 in total taxes collecte — and 45 percent of the taxes came from retail sale. So shoppers were almost equally supporting city services.

By 2005, the most recent data available, property owners now shoulder much more of the burden. In 2005, the city collected $83,796,845 in local taxes. Of that, $47,010,384 came from property taxes or 56 percent. The city brought in $23,378,788 in sales taxes or 28 percent.

Another interesting note, though of little relevance, is that Rockford Mayor Robert McGaw had a salary of $27,000 while police chief Del Peterson was being paid $40,238.

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