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 the final budget 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 don’t care: Ideology 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 heavy burden and the mad rush of New Yorkers heading for the exits.
In just three short years — from July 2020 to July 2023 — the state population plunged by more than 533,000, state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli reports, even as it grew nationwide.
That, he notes, led “directly” to a massive loss in tax revenue.
Albany saw personal-income-tax collections fall by nearly $11 billion last year, from $70.1 billion 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. That was “the same year their New York state taxes were increased by 24%.”
He called it a “danger signal the Legislature must heed.”
Likewise, the CBC warns the Legislature’s hikes “would weaken 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, the outbound stampede will only grow.