NEW YORK AT A TIPPING POINT
As a lifelong New Yorker born and raised on Long Island, I love our state. And it pains me to see so many things going wrong.
It hurts to see far-left politicians push Amazon and tens of thousands of jobs away from our state, and to hear the heartbreaking stories of families fleeing New York for states with lower taxes and a cheaper standard of living. I know people personally who’ve chosen to up and leave, fed up with the broken status quo.
The hard reality is that New York’s political class keeps pushing the same old “solutions” – taxes, taxes and more taxes.
The problem is that these so-called solutions are the cause of the problem.
People don’t leave New York because they don’t like it. They leave because we aren’t attracting jobs like we used to and are imposing punishing taxes on the people that stay. Notably, public services like the subway system don’t seem to be better off for it.
New York has the highest local and state tax burden in the country. We rank at the bottom for economic competitiveness.
Now, the genius politicians up in Albany have a new plan – tax the rich.
Except this new plan sounds a lot like the old plan. New York already does a fantastic job of taxing the wealthy, trust me. The state already imposes a “millionaire’s tax,” and continues to drive my friends in the financial industry to sunny Florida.
But their latest proposal takes the cake. The politicians still don’t get it.
State Senator Brad Hoylman from Manhattan is sponsoring a “pied-a-terre” tax. His plan would impose hundreds of millions in spiteful taxes on many who own second homes in New York City.
Don’t let the fancy French language fool you. This is a terrible idea.
Wealthy people who have multiple homes aren’t going to just stay put and pay the tax. They’ll sell, and they’ll pull their dollars with them – money that can and should go towards New York’s economy. They’ll pack up and buy in Florida, where there’s no state income tax. Even across the river in New Jersey might look good in comparison.
It would undermine the New York City economy and put people in from all walks of life – from realtors to architects to building maintenance workers and doormen – out of a job.
It’s not surprising such a bad policy would come from a career politician like Senator Hoylman. The guy seems more focusedd on getting President Trump’s name retroactively stripped from a long-closed state park (Trump donated the land in 2006) than sound economic policy. His priorities are all wrong.
When Governor Andrew Cuomo first ran for Governor in 2010, he said that New York “has no future as the tax capital of the nation.” He was right then. And just this year he echoed these sentiments, saying that, “There is a tipping point where people say, I love New York, but to spend another $300,000 in taxes, I’ll move to Florida.”
He’s exactly right.
We’re teetering at the edge of this tipping point right now. The worst thing New York could do is impose yet another poorly thought-out tax.
Anthony Scaramucci is the Founder and Managing Partner of SkyBridge Capital. He is the author of four books: The Little Book of Hedge Funds, Goodbye Gordon Gekko, and Hopping Over the Rabbit Hole (a 2016 Wall Street Journal best seller), and Trump: The Blue-Collar President.
