{"id":44296,"date":"2025-11-19T00:36:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T00:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/44296\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T00:36:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T00:36:11","slug":"mamdanis-plan-would-make-nyc-the-most-tax-hostile-place-in-us-to-do-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/44296\/","title":{"rendered":"Mamdani’s plan would make NYC the most tax-hostile place in US to do business"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Zohran Mamdani and his supporters talk of taxing the rich<\/a>, they usually mean it on a personal level \u2014 referring to his proposal to raise income taxes on New York City residents with annual incomes over $1 million.<\/p>\n

He estimated this would raise $4 billion a year to help fund his expansive agenda, including universal childcare.<\/p>\n

Less attention was paid to the larger of Mamdani\u2019s tax bids \u2014 a proposal to raise $5 billion by elevating New York\u2019s top tax rate on corporations from 7.25% to match New Jersey\u2019s highest-in-the nation level of 11.5%.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it works for our regional neighbor, why can\u2019t it work for us?\u201d Mamdani said in a June interview.<\/p>\n

After all, as his campaign issue guide put it: \u201cNew York\u2019s corporate tax rate now lags behind 15 other states and Washington, DC.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was highly misleading, however.<\/p>\n

In New York City, Long Island and five northern suburban counties \u2014 where the bulk of the state tax base is concentrated \u2014 the corporate tax rate is compounded by a 30% surcharge for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.<\/p>\n

This raises the top rate throughout the region to 9.43%, fourth highest in the nation.<\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s proposal would take this up to 13.7%, easily topping all states.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not all: In addition to the state and regional corporate tax surcharge, New York City imposes its own corporate income tax of 8.85% (or 9% on finance firms), bringing the current combined state and city rate to well over 18%.<\/p>\n

Adding this to the mix, Mamdani\u2019s tax hike would bring<\/a> the combined New York State and City corporate tax rate to 22.5% \u2014 above the federal rate of 21%.<\/p>\n

As economists point out, higher corporate taxes don\u2019t dissipate into the ether \u2014 nor are they subtracted from notionally lavish CEO paychecks.<\/p>\n

One way or another, they are absorbed by shareholders (including pension and retirement savings plans), workers, clients and customers.<\/p>\n

While a portion of corporate taxes on multi-state firms is exported beyond New York\u2019s borders, any new tax hike also would come on the top of this year\u2019s $1.4 billion increase in the separate MTA-dedicated payroll tax on large employers in the city and suburbs.<\/p>\n

To be sure, given the need for formal state approval of both tax increases, the new mayor is highly unlikely to get everything he wants \u2014 or even most of it \u2014 from Gov. Kathy Hochul and his fellow Democrats in the Legislature.<\/p>\n

However, he\u2019s equally unlikely to come away empty-handed.<\/p>\n

Hochul\u2019s mid-September endorsement of Mamdani included the disclaimer that she wasn\u2019t \u201caligned with him on every issue,\u201d taxes being the primary point of difference.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI\u2019m not raising taxes on high net-worth people right now, because we cannot have them leave the state,\u201d she explained before the election.<\/p>\n

The governor is hardly an anti-tax hardliner, though.<\/p>\n

Her most recent budget included a preemptive five-year extension of the significantly higher \u201cmillionaire tax\u201d rates signed into law by Andrew Cuomo in 2021, which were otherwise scheduled to expire in 2027.<\/p>\n

Taunted by \u201ctax the rich\u201d chants at a preelection Mamdani rally, Hochul failed to make the obvious response: Thanks to a tax hike she\u2019s perpetuated, New York City\u2019s millionaire earners already are taxed at the highest rates in the country.<\/p>\n

While still sounding reluctant to go along with a tax hike targeting<\/a> individual income millionaires, the governor pointedly didn\u2019t deny a Politico report last week that she and her staff had begun \u201cquiet, back-of-the-napkin style discussions about how to increase the corporate tax rate.\u201d<\/p>\n

She cited uncertainty over the impact of federal budget cuts as a reason to keep options open in planning for her next budget, due in January.<\/p>\n

Not incidentally, she faces a Democratic primary challenge on the left from Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado.<\/p>\n

Members of the large Democratic majorities in the state Senate and Assembly already are on record as supporting both higher corporate and personal income taxes, albeit at lower rates than Mamdani has proposed.<\/p>\n

In an election year, they won\u2019t want to risk primaries from the new mayor\u2019s energized supporters.<\/p>\n

And so, as usual in Albany, the buck will stop in the governor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

E.J. McMahon is an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Zohran Mamdani and his supporters talk of taxing the rich, they usually mean it on a personal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44297,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[15660,9,24,55,54,56,299,2780,985,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-44296","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-corporate-taxes","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","12":"tag-new-york-city-news","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-opinion","15":"tag-taxes","16":"tag-taxpayers","17":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44296","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=44296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}