Sami Lavi's professional audio equipment store, Midwest Pro Sound & Lighting, opened near the intersection of Clark and Diversey in 1976. Just seven years ago, business was going so well that Lavi decided to open a second shop, at 1613 W. Belmont.

"It was good at the time. People were still shopping," he says. "But now, I'm actually losing money every day."

Lavi blames his store's downturn on the perfect storm of a struggling economy, the ascent of online, out-of-state competitors and Chicago's ballooning sales tax.

"If people want to spend $5,000 on equipment, right there that's another $550 just for buying it in my store. It's crazy. Nine percent is too much, but 10 and a quarter is crazy. What are they trying to do? Get the business out of the city?"

At the end of the month, Lavi is closing the store he's run for more than 30 years at 2806 N. Clark. He predicts he isn't alone in a local pull away from independent retail.

"You are going to see so many stores closing, it's not even funny," Lavi said.

The county's sales tax went up 1 percent this week. It's timing, on the heels of a 0.25 percent increase from the Regional Transit Authority and skyrocketing local property taxes, adds to the sting.

Chicago's current sales tax is the cumulative result of several local levies: 1.75 percent to Cook County; 1 percent to the RTA; 1.25 percent to the city and 6.25 percent to the state. Altogether, our sales tax stands at 10.25 percent, the heftiest of any major U.S. city.

Chrissy Mancini, spokesperson for the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, a Chicago-based research and advocacy think tank, says that's in large part because of the state's antiquated tax structure. According to Mancini, Illinois taxes fewer services than any other state in the country.

"Our sales tax has to be higher because we tax less things. People don't mow their lawn anymore, they hire people to do it for them," she says. "Over the past 50 years, the consumption of services has gone up while the sale of goods has gone down, so Illinois is taxing a declining base."

"People don't want to pay a tax on things like dry cleaning, but what they don't realize is that you can lower the tax rate if you expanded the base."

"But it takes some guts in Springfield to do that," she added. However, despite this, and despite the number of hands in the cookie jar, as the most recent government institution to tack on their increase, the county has taken the brunt of Chicago's swelling anti-tax angst.

Maureen Martino, executive director of Lake View East Chamber of Commerce, is one such critic. "It's poor fiscal management by the Cook County board," she says. "I don't think our consumers and businesses should have to pay for people not being able to balance budgets. If you can't pay people's pensions, you should be looking at what jobs to cut and what jobs to keep."

Anders Lindall, public affairs director for American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local Council 31, says that while that sentiment is popular, "there is an important distinction to be made between the management ranks that have been so fat with patronage employees and incompetent managers for so many years and the front lines, that have been allowed to deteriorate."

Lindall points to cuts of more than 10 percent of the county's public defenders in the last few years as case loads have continued to rise.

"The cuts last year to the health system and to the courts were drastic," says Lindall. "They resulted in thousands of county residents having less access to health care, vastly higher court case loads for both county prosecutors and defenders and terrible overcrowding conditions in both the Cook County jail and the juvenile detention center." The lion's share of the county budget goes to health care services for the uninsured, Cook County's court system, which is the largest in the country, and public safety.

Lindall agrees that reform is needed, but says that Cook County residents can't wait for that to happen before funding crucial services. Had the board not passed a new budget by its February deadline, it could have resulted in a complete Cook County shut-down.

"The process of turning around county government and restoring a robust system of public health, public safety and the courts is going to be a long and involved process," says Lindall. But he has hope that process is already under way.

In February, AFSCME was part of a diverse coalition of about 70 labor, consumer, faith-based groups and others that advocated for an independent temporary trusteeship to take the reigns of the county health care system and, in Lindall's words, "insulate it from politics."

The coalition is hoping the trusteeship can be the beginning of series of similar reforms.

And in the meantime, although many businesses are struggling with the resultant high sales tax, Martino says a lot of them are still hanging in there-for now.

"Some businesses aren't able to handle what's coming with taxes and real estate, but we have others that are prepared to face the challenges that come with hard economic times," she said. "We've seen some restaurants and shops actually expand recently."

"I hope the bulk of local shoppers stay local, but only time will tell."