{"id":157167,"date":"2026-03-08T19:07:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T19:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/157167\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T19:07:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T19:07:07","slug":"mamdanis-tax-hike-crusade-already-hurting-nyc-economy-biz-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/157167\/","title":{"rendered":"Mamdani’s tax hike crusade already hurting NYC economy: biz leader"},"content":{"rendered":"

The leader of the city\u2019s top business advocacy group warned Sunday that Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s tax-hike crusade<\/a> is already scaring away investors.<\/p>\n

Steve Fulop, CEO of the Partnership for the City of New York, said the democratic socialist mayor\u2019s push to increase taxes to fund his freebie-filled agenda<\/a> is pushing the \u201cvery, very fragile\u201d Big Apple economy to the brink.<\/p>\n

Mamdani, who took office in January, is threatening to hike city property taxes by almost 10%<\/a> unless Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state legislature agree to increase income taxes on the wealthy and also up the corporate tax.<\/p>\n

Mayor Zohran Mamdani has pushed Albany to raise taxes on wealthy New Yorkers and corporations to fund his proposed city budget. Matthew McDermott for NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a City Hall that has now proposed four hikes in taxes in two months,\u201d Fulop said during an appearance on 77 WABC radio\u2019s \u201cCats Roundtable.\u201d<\/a> \u201cWe\u2019ve had an income tax at $500,000. An income tax at $1 million. We\u2019ve had a real estate tax. And we\u2019ve had a corporate tax.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat type of rhetoric scares away investment,\u201d Fulop told host John Catsimatidis.<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s CEOs are talking privately talking about ramping up job production in Texas instead of adding jobs in New York, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeveral of them have said non-publicly that they\u2019re not going to add any new jobs in New York. This is a byproduct of the rhetoric,\u201d Fulop said.<\/p>\n

The Partnership recently issued a report showing that New York is losing banking jobs to business friendly, low-tax Texas.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cPeople like to invest where there\u2019s stability,\u201d Fulop said. \u201cWhere they can predict what\u2019s going to happen\u2026 When you have people talking about income taxes \u2026 And then property, taxes, and corporate taxes, it creates uncertainty. People won\u2019t invest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mamdani has threatened to raise property taxes to fund his budget if Gov. Kathy Hochul and Albany don\u2019t raise taxes.<\/p>\n

Mamdani and other \u201ctax the rich\u201d advocates argue that wealthy residents won\u2019t leave because of tax hikes. They cite other studies concluding that it\u2019s the working-class and middle-class residents who leave the city because of high costs.<\/p>\n

But Fulop, a former Jersey City mayor for 12 years, said even a small number of businesses or people leaving could put New York in hot water.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t need a lot of the super-wealthy people to leave to have a huge impact on the budget,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen people say, \u2018Everybody\u2019s going to stay.\u2019 Or that \u2018They\u2019re bluffing.\u2019 All you need is a handful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mamdani has said the extra revenue is needed to plug a $5.4 billion hole in the city\u2019s massive $127 billion budget. <\/p>\n

His proposed package of income tax hikes on the wealthy and corporate tax increases would nearly fill that gap, his administration has said even as the governor has pledged to not raise taxes this year.<\/p>\n

Mamdani pitched an increase to the city\u2019s property tax rate by 9.5%<\/a> as an alternative \u2014 with property taxes the only major hike the mayor and City Council can implement without the state government signing off.<\/p>\n

Hochul, who is seeking re-election to a four-year term this fall, <\/a>continues to face pressure from Mamdani even after she chipped in to reduce the city\u2019s budget gap with $1.5 billion in extra funding. She has has also agreed to bankroll the first phase of Mamdani\u2019s universal child care program.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, City Council members \u2014 including Speaker Julie Menin \u2014 oppose raising the property tax.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the City Council, the speaker [Menin] has been great. She understands it \u2026 The governor has been strong. City Hall has a different philosophy as it relates to taxes,\u201d Fulop said.<\/p>\n

New York Republicans have predicted Hochul will give in to Mamdani\u2019s tax demands if she wins re-election this year. Matthew McDermott for NY Post<\/p>\n

The Democratic leadership in the state Senate and Assembly has recommended increases in income taxes on millionaires, but the governor, who has enormous leverage in budget negotiations, has rejected such proposals in the past.<\/p>\n

Some political analysts say Mamdani\u2019s rhetoric is putting more pressure on Democratic state lawmakers to authorize tax hikes, fearing the wrath from his growing base of democratic socialists and lefty backers.<\/p>\n

Former Brooklyn Councilman and mayoral candidate Sal Albanese said \u201cthere\u2019s no doubt\u201d that democratic socialist Mamdani\u2019s election has given a boost to the tax the rich campaign long pushed by the DSA and other progressives.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s definitely momentum to raise taxes on the wealthy. Zohran\u2019s election was helpful to that movement,\u201d Albanese said.<\/p>\n

He predicted that Hochul would hold the line on taxes until Election Day, but all bets are off if she\u2019s re-elected in November.<\/p>\n

\u201cHochul may pull a Houdini out of her hat and do a tax increase after the election,\u201d Albanese said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The leader of the city\u2019s top business advocacy group warned Sunday that Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s tax-hike crusade is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":157168,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4241,14927,15660,34858,1091,19077,426,57,9,17566,18571,56,63,65,64,7754,2780,58,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-157167","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-albany","9":"tag-city-budget","10":"tag-corporate-taxes","11":"tag-corporations","12":"tag-democratic-socialists-of-america","13":"tag-julie-menin","14":"tag-kathy-hochul","15":"tag-metro","16":"tag-new-york","17":"tag-new-york-state-assembly","18":"tag-new-york-state-senate","19":"tag-ny","20":"tag-nyc","21":"tag-nyc-headlines","22":"tag-nyc-news","23":"tag-property-taxes","24":"tag-taxes","25":"tag-us-news","26":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}