2 Investigators/BGA: Cook County Retailers Rack Up Fines But Keep Selling Bootleg Cigarettes
(CBS) -- They sell cigarettes supplied by a growing black market increasing their profits, but decreasing millions of dollars in tax revenue needed by county.
Now, a CBS 2 and Better Government Association investigation found that the county has failed to collect up to $20 million in fines for the tax violations.
2 Investigator Pam Zekman reports some of the worst scofflaws are still selling the bootlegged cigarettes.
If you buy a pack of smokes in Cook County, $3 goes towards county taxes adding up to $137 million collected last year.
The proof taxes have been paid are tax stamps on the bottom, one for the state, one for the county.
But over five years, thousands of unstamped packs were found by teams from the county revenue department investigators in a special unit created by County Board President Toni Preckwinkle
"When we came into office we discovered there was not a robust effort to get people to comply," Preckwinkle said.
But county records show of the $26.3 million in fines issued, only $6.35 million have been collected,
The shop that owes the most, $389,000, is Burbank Tobacco and Hookah at 8511 S. Harlem in Burbank, which recently changed owners.
"If these businesses will not pay the tax they owe, if they resist and ignore the county, then they need to be shut down," said Andy Shaw, of the Better Government Association.
Worse yet we found some locations on that deadbeat list still selling cigarettes without the stamps.
We bought one pack without a county stamp from a Burbank gas station at 6745 W. 79th St. that owes the county $104,000 in unpaid fines. The owner did not return our call.
We bought another at a Mobil Gas station at 4015 183rd St. Country Club hills that owes the county more than $121,225 in fines, according to the county. On the phone the owner says he's fighting the fines in court.
Then there's Burbank Food and Liquor, at 4816 W.83rd St. in Burbank. The county says it owes $146,427 in fines owed to the county. We bought a pack that only had a Missouri tax stamp. No Illinois or county stamp.
We spoke to the owner who says he buys them on the black market to compete with other businesses who also do it.
Now Preckwinkle has hired a private debt collector to go after the unpaid fines adding, "You know as well as I do that doesn't happen overnight when you're pursuing scofflaws."
After Zekman pointed out that hardcore scofflaws are so undeterred they still sell unstamped cigarettes, Preckwinkle said, "We will continue to come after them. We'll get 'em."
She says she's also starting a pilot program with Chicago to revoke the business licenses of those who don't pay up and hopes to do the same thing with other municipalities.
