Enterprise Zones All Over IL - Exempt from Sales Tax on Materials

[Tom Shallcross]

Chicagoland and Illinois investors - this has come up several times in conversations so I wanted to post it here to ensure everyone was aware of the opportunity to be exempt from sales tax on your building materials.

Illinois has designated Enterprise Zones (not to be confused with qualified opportunity zones) and the different areas are listed here: https://www2.illinois.gov/dceo/ExpandRelocate/Incentives/taxassistance/pages/ezmaps.aspx

Chicago has 6 zones and they are not all located in underdeveloped areas.  These zones claim to be for "stimulating growth in depressed areas" and many of these areas do indeed fit that category, but areas of Bucktown, Avondale, North Center, Roscoe Village and Ravenswood all qualify so don't dismiss your property because you feel you are in an A or B area. I have a large flip in Avondale that qualified and saved us about 8k in material costs. 

Contact info for Chicago is here: https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/dcd/supp_info/enterprise_zone_program.html, you just reach out to Joanne and it's a 2 page application where you'll need to show ownership and approved permits, and outline high-level scope of work. I can't speak to the other IL enterprise zones areas outside of Chicago, but I would assume it's a similar process.

Took me about 48hrs to get approved and you just show the approved form when purchasing at your supplier. If your sub will be purchasing directly, he needs to fill out a separate form after you are approved which he can then show the supplier. ABT has been the only supplier for us that did not honored it, but Ferguson did so we didn't have to pay taxes on any of materials for a very large rehab. 

Interactive map for Chicago can be found here: https://data.cityofchicago.org/Community-Economic-Development/Boundaries-Enterprise-Zones/64xf-pyvh.

Save some money on your materials!