HUNT VALLEY, Md. (TNND) — JPMorgan Chase will likely continue shrinking its workforce in its New York City headquarters while growing in other locations, CEO Jamie Dimon said in a letter to shareholders on Monday.
He wrote that the city’s corporate taxes have made the firm less profitable and competitive than it could be in other states, like Texas.
“While New York City is still our company’s global headquarters, we have shrunk our headcount in the city, from 30,000 a decade ago to 24,000 today, and increased our headcount in Texas, from 26,000 in 2015 to 32,000 today,” Dimon said. “This trend will likely continue.”
Financial institutions in the Big Apple pay a nine-percent corporate tax, unlike in Texas, where they are levied a variable franchise tax. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has defended taxes on corporations, which he said earlier this year should help bridge City Hall’s budget gap. He noted that property taxes would have to be raised if his proposed corporate tax hike wasn’t approved.
“The first path is the most sustainable and fairest: raising taxes on the wealthiest and corporations, and ending the drain by fixing the imbalance between what the City provides the State and what we receive in return,” Mamdani said in a February statement. “If we do not go down the first path, the City will be forced to go down a second, more harmful path of property taxes and raiding our reserves – weakening our long-term fiscal footing and placing the onus for resolving this crisis on the backs of working and middle-class New Yorkers.”
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has supported the absence of a corporate tax in his state. He said last fall, when the number of Texas-based businesses reached three million, that the state’s economy was growing through business-friendly policies.
“Texas is the land of freedom and opportunity where businesses and workers can chart their own path to succeed and thrive,” Abbott said in November. “With no corporate or personal income tax, a highly skilled and diverse workforce, and the best business climate in the nation, Texas attracts innovators and entrepreneurs from across the country and around the world.”
JPMorgan Chase says it employs more than 18,000 people in over 190 branches around the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Most of the firm’s New York employees work out of Manhattan, where it claims to serve more than four million customers. The company opened its new headquarters on Park Avenue in October.
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