§ 4-156-1020 — Tax imposed; rate of tax; application of tax

4-156-1020 Tax imposed; rate of tax; application of tax.

(a) Tax imposed. A tax is imposed on the activity of social media amusement by taxing the means by which such media content engagement is most commonly monetized, through the collection and use of consumer data by a social media business in support of the entity’s commercial purposes. (b) The tax is imposed on social media businesses that collect consumer data on more than 100,000 Chicago consumers in a calendar year, based on the number of Chicago consumers from whom a social media platform business collects consumer data within a calendar month. The rate of the tax is $0.50 per the number of Chicago consumers per calendar month in excess of 100,000. (c) Application. (1) There shall be a rebuttable presumption that a consumer whose information on record with or available to a social media business indicates a Chicago home address, a Chicago mailing address, or an internet protocol address or other consumer data on primary usage location connected with a Chicago location is a Chicago consumer for purposes of this article. The burden of proving that a consumer is not a Chicago consumer is on the social media business. For administrative ease, a social media business may create reasonable categorization standards to use in analyzing consumer data to determine if a consumer is a Chicago consumer; however, its reliance on such standards does not alleviate the social media business’s burden of proof. (2) A Chicago consumer shall be counted only once in the calculation of the monthly tax imposed on a social media business. Each calendar month shall be treated as a separate reporting period. (3) Business entities that are part of a controlled group of corporations as defined in Section 1563(a) of the Internal Revenue Code shall be treated as a single entity for purposes of meeting the definition of a social media business under this article. (Added Coun. J. 12-19-25, p. 38125, Art. IX, § 1)