Arlington Heights is suing one of its neighbors, claiming the city of Rolling Meadows is wrongly refusing to return nearly $1.2 million in sales tax revenue wrongly given to it by the Illinois Department of Revenue over eight years last decade.
On Feb. 14, the village of Arlington Heights filed suit in Cook County Circuit Court against its neighbor.
The dispute centers on sales taxes that were paid by the Cooper’s Hawk restaurant in the 700 block of West Algonquin Road, from November 2011 to December 2019.
According to the complaint, the restaurant is located in the village of Arlington Heights. However, the complaint asserts the state revenue department, which collects sales taxes on behalf of cities, villages and counties throughout Illinois, incorrectly distributed the restaurant’s sales tax revenues during that period to Rolling Meadows.
According to the complaint, Arlington Heights notified the IDOR of the error in March 2020. The complaint asserts the state confirmed the error had been theirs, as their computer system had wrongly coded the Cooper’s Hawk restaurant as being located in Rolling Meadows.
According to the complaint, IDOR sent Rolling Meadows a so-called “tax location verification letter” in April 2011, asking the city to verify the location of Cooper’s Hawk. However, when Rolling Meadows failed to reply, IDOR interpreted their silence as agreement by Rolling Meadows that the restaurant was located within its boundaries.
Despite the obvious error, the complaint asserts the state only would reimburse Arlington Heights the $108,934 collected by the state for the restaurant for the six months ending 2019.
Arlington Heights said it then sought the remainder of the allegedly improperly allocated funds from Rolling Meadows.
But, to date, the complaint asserts Rolling Meadows has refused to release the money.
Arlington Heights’ complaint asks the court to order Rolling Meadows to pay the money into a court-created trust, with interest.
Arlington Heights is represented in the action by attorneys Hart M. Passman and Braeden E. Lord, of the firm of Elrod Friedman, of Chicago.