Many — most? — Des Moines taxpayers probably don’t care all that deeply whether the city extracts taxes via one broad-based method or another. But due to class-action procedure and the barriers it erects to opting out, they all get to be plaintiffs in the resulting suit, and the lawyers (self-) appointed to bring the case are expecting to pocket 37 percent, or $15 million, of the $40 million changing hands, a sum that could amount to $1,400 an hour. [Ryan Koopmans (On Brief blog), Des Moines Register, earlier]
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Actually it is worse than that. The city council will now have to,levy a tax to pay for the payments. SO, the city collected a tax that they should not have collected. They will now levy a tax on taxpayers to pay the taxpayers back what they should not have been collecting less lawyer fees. BTW don’t forget all the costs of,administration too!