Speaking of Mayor Johnson, he wants to soak it to the rich with taxes and impose a transaction tax on derivative trading.
So a near-trillion dollar trading industry – made famous for example in the Dan Akroyd and Eddie Murphy movie Trading Places, is considering packing up and leaving for a friendlier environment. It makes as much sense as Nebraska putting a tax on every ear of corn produced.
The mayor is reportedly undecided:
“We don’t want to leave,” said Ed Tilly, the chief executive officer of Cboe Global Markets Inc., the firm behind Wall Street’s so-called “fear gauge,” the VIX. “But we cannot be in a position where we are disadvantaged in the most competitive markets in the world, where our competitors don’t face the same economics that we would.” …
The derivatives industry, home to some of the most profitable businesses in the city, is a tempting target to plug that gap. Just CME Group Inc. and Cboe, the two firms that are publicly traded, had combined adjusted income of more than $3.6 billion last year.
Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office said that no decision has been made on a transactions tax and the administration is open to dialogue with businesses.
So far Chicago has mostly avoided the mass exodus we’ve seen from California and New York, and employment in the derivatives industry is still rising:
