Chicago sues eBay over concert ticket taxes

The AP reports:

The city of Chicago is suing eBay and its subsidiary StubHub for failing to collect city amusement taxes on concert and sporting event tickets sold through the Web sites.

Chicago's amusement tax ordinance includes Internet sites that resell tickets, but eBay, which bought StubHub last year, says the 8 percent tax does not apply to it.

It's not clear how much money is at stake, but when the city first floated the idea of going after taxes for online sales in 2006, Alderman Ed Burke estimated the city could be losing $16 million a year on Internet-based sales by ticket resellers who don't collect the tax.

The city filed two complaints Monday, one against each company, asking eBay and StubHub to hand over records of sales in Illinois.

"We don't have enough information to give an estimate (of lost taxes), because of the lack of information from eBay and StubHub," said Chicago Law Department spokeswoman Jennifer Hoyle.

No word yet on whether eBay will send legal business towards Alderman Burke's law firm likeTony Rezko did.