Albany progressives are pushing for another ginormous state tax hike this year, and never mind how New York’s brutal rates are already driving taxpayers (and job creators) to flee, steadily eroding the tax base.
Both the state Senate and the Assembly included hefty hikes — as much as $2.2 billion — in their responses to Gov. Hochul’s budget plan, along the way to settling th🎃e final budge🎉t by month’s end.
Taxpayers earning more than $5 million would face a bump of half a percentage point, pushing the top rate to 11.4%, and a whopping 15.3% in the city — in addition to the top federal income-tax rate, 37%.
The progs would also jack up corporate taxes.
This, even as the Citizens Budget Commission recently reported that New York and its localities already lead the nation in taxes, swiping more per person from the public’s pockets (63% more than the national average) than in 💎any other state.
The progs do🐼n’t care: Ideol💛ogy is all that matters.
Mind you, the Empire State was bleeding taxpayers long before the exodus accelerated during COVID — and the Legislature’s geniuses responded by raising taxes even more, by $4.3 billion in 2021.
Last year, the braintrust and Gov. Hochul decided taxes still weren’t high enough, so they jacked them up another $1.1 billion.
Albany simply refuses to admit the link between the hea♔vy burden and the mad rush of Ne✅w Yorkers heading for the exits.
In just three short years — from July 2020 to Ju𓆉ly 2023 — the state population plunged by more than 533,000, state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli reports, ev🐻en as it grew nationwide.
That, he notes, led “directly” 𝐆to a massive loss in tax revenue.
Albany saw personal-income-tax collections fall by nearly $11 billion last year, from $70.1 bil🐻lion to $59.3 billion, or 15%.
High-earning taxpayers account for a disproportionate share of revenue; of course they’re the ones lawmakers slammed hardest in 2021 and aim to sock again this year — and they’ve been a growing part of the rush out of New York.
“Out-migration by New Yorkers earning more than $25 million rose” from 6% to 8% in 2021, the Empire Center’s E.J. McMahon testified last year. Tha♏t was “the same year their New York state taxes were increased by 24%.”
He called it aꦿ “danger signal the Legislature must h🍬eed.”
Likewise, the CBC warns the Legislature’s hikes “would weakenౠ New York’s already precarious competitive position.”
Hochul says tax hikes 🀅are a “nonstarter.” Yet she’s rolled over for lawmakers before.
If she fails to stick to her guns this time, thꦏe outb🦂ound stampede will only grow.