New York state lawmakers may act this month to raise taxes on high-income people, a top legislator said, as the state confronts a budget deficit exacerbated by the coronavirus crisis.
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, a Democrat from the Bronx, told reporters Monday he wants to increase rates during a December session so they can take effect starting in 2021. He is in talks about the matter with Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, who are also Democrats.
A state official familiar with the negotiations said senators are pushing to make higher rates retroactive to some earlier point in 2020. This would raise revenue to avoid up to $8 billion in unspecified cuts to education and social-service funding that state lawmakers authorized in April as a placeholder in the current $178 billion budget. That spending plan was contingent on additional federal funding that hasn’t materialized.
Ms. Stewart-Cousins’s team is willing to impose new levies on New Yorkers reporting $2 million or more in annual income, the state official said. Another official familiar with the talks said Assembly negotiators are willing to increase taxes on people reporting annual income of at least $1 million.
New York state now taxes personal income over $1,077,550 at a rate of 8.82%, and New York City levies an additional tax.
If income over $1 million were taxed at 10.75%, the rate just adopted by New Jersey lawmakers, the state could generate an additional $5.28 billion a year, FPI estimated in the same report.
Republican legislators said they are concerned about raising taxes because New York already has some of the highest levies in the country. Business groups warn that increasing income taxes will prompt New York’s wealthiest taxpayers to relocate to other states.
“There is a real danger that a large number of New York high earners who are working remotely will not come back to the city if their tax rate is going to increase substantially,” she said. “New York is not as sticky as it was even three years ago.”
“In this historic budget crisis that we’re facing, cuts are not the answer,” Dr. Choi said. “Raising taxes on the wealthy is not only immensely popular, but economists say it not only won’t hurt the state economy, but it’s better than budget cuts.”