Office of Inspector General
City of Chicago
Report of the Office of Inspector General:
*************************
Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection confisca ted property a udit
ro
CD
m
C~J
June 2014
866-IG-TIPL1NE (866-448-4754)
Joseph M. Ferguson Inspector General
OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL
City of Chicago
740 N. Sedgwick Street, Suite 200 Chicago, Illinois 60C-O4 Telephone: (77.1) 47S-7799 Fax: (.773)478-3949
June 20, 2014
To the Mayor, Members of the City Council, City Clerk, City Treasurer, and residents of the City of Chicago:
The City of Chicago Office of Inspector General (OIG) has completed an audit of the Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection's (BACP) Business Compliance and Enforcement (BCE) division. In this audit, we evaluated how BACP confiscates and stores contraband from businesses that violate City code and found that BACP effectively safeguarded confiscated property from misplacement, theft, and/or fraud throughout its custodianship.
BACP plays an important role in protecting the public's health and safety as well as City revenues. BACP inspects businesses for code violations, expired food, expired baby formula, and unstamped (or untaxed) cigarettes, among other items. The sale of unstamped cigarettes is a particularly challenging problem for Chicago, which has the nation's highest cumulative cigarette tax. The tax, currently $7.17 per pack,1 includes levies at the city, county, state, and federal levels."
With a relatively small team, BACP plays a critical role in tax enforcement. For instance, between January and September 2013, BACP confiscated 31,000 packs of unstamped cigarettes which allowed the City to issue more than $292,000 in fines, or over eight times the missed tax revenue. BACP deserves credit for the careful handling, tracking, and storage of confiscated property that both protects the public from harm and supports the administrative hearing process for these fin...
Click here for full text