## Facts

- Illinois amended the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority Act to fund a major McCormick Place expansion through bonds and specified local taxes.
- The Act authorized an airport departure occupation tax on private, for-hire ground-transportation providers operating from O’Hare and Midway.
- The Authority imposed the tax by ordinance on commercial vehicle departures carrying passengers for hire, using per-passenger and flat per-vehicle rates that varied by vehicle type and capacity.
- Allegro Services and similar operators provided bus, van, limousine, or taxi service from the airports exclusively to suburban or out-of-state destinations, not to destinations within the City of Chicago.
- Plaintiffs asserted they did not benefit from the McCormick Place expansion in the same way as operators serving Chicago destinations and were therefore unfairly taxed.
- The record included evidence that increased convention and tourism activity could increase regional travel, including demand for suburban lodging and related ground transportation.

## Issues

1. Whether the airport departure occupation tax violated the dormant Commerce Clause under the Complete Auto test.
2. Whether the tax classification violated the Equal Protection Clause under rational-basis review.
3. Whether the tax violated the Illinois Constitution’s uniformity clause governing non-property taxes.

## Decision

- The Illinois Supreme Court affirmed judgment for the Authority and upheld the airport departure tax and ordinance.
- The tax satisfied the Complete Auto requirements: substantial nexus to Illinois airports, no improper multiple-tax risk under the court’s apportionment/internal-consistency analysis, no discrimination against interstate commerce, and a fair relationship to governmental services and economic activity tied to the taxed operations.
- Under equal protection, the legislature could rationally treat all airport-based ground-transportation providers as a single class connected to and benefitting from increased regional travel associated with the expansion.
- Under the Illinois uniformity clause, the taxed class reflected real and substantial differences (private, for-hire airport ground transportation) and bore a reasonable relationship to the revenue purpose of financing a project expected to increase tourism and related transportation demand.

## Legal Principles

- A state or local tax affecting interstate commerce is valid under the dormant Commerce Clause if it meets the Complete Auto requirements: substantial nexus, fair apportionment, nondiscrimination, and fair relation to services provided.
- For economic and tax classifications, equal protection generally applies rational-basis review; a classification is valid if any conceivable rational basis supports it.
- Illinois’s uniformity clause requires (1) a real and substantial difference supporting the tax classification and (2) a reasonable relationship between the classification and the tax’s purpose or public policy; uniformity is required within the class.

## Conclusion

Illinois could impose a neutral, per-departure occupation tax on private ground-transportation providers operating from O’Hare and Midway to finance the McCormick Place expansion, even as applied to suburban and out-of-state operators, because the classification and tax structure satisfied the Commerce Clause, equal protection, and Illinois uniformity requirements.


Allegro Servs., Ltd. v. Metro. Pier & Exposition Auth., 172 Ill. 2d 243, 665 N.E.2d 1246 (Ill. 1996)