New York City – Get ready to pay more for everything from toilet paper to cars starting July 1.
The City Council approved Mayor Bloomberg’s proposal to raise the sales tax here from 8.375 to 8.875 percent — a .5 percentage-point increase — as part of a broader plan to raise $887 million.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Council Speaker Christine Quinn agreed on a plan to raise $887 million by increasing the city sales tax rate and repealing an exemption for clothing purchases of less than $110.
The proposals, requiring Legislature approval, would boost the sales tax to 8.875 percent from 8.375 percent. The plan also would apply the charge to electricity and natural gas purchases from non-utility companies, according to Bloomberg.
The mayor and Quinn also said they want the Legislature to reduce the burden on 44,000 local businesses by ending the city’s tax on non-corporate entities, such as proprietorships. Their plan also would base company taxes only on sales and stop including property and payroll in the formula.
“With tax revenues down $5 billion, the economic crisis provided us with only a menu of onerous options to balance the city’s budget,” Bloomberg said in a statement. “While we have been forced to make some unpopular choices, this package has a silver lining — significant tax relief for 44,000 local businesses that will help create and retain jobs.”
Wall Street, which accounted for about 12 percent of revenue in 2007, may lose more than $47 billion and 47,000 jobs, the city budget office has predicted.
The mayor first proposed the sales tax increase May 1 when he presented a $59.4 billion budget that included eliminating 13,500 municipal jobs, mostly through attrition, to close a $4 billion gap. The mayor and council must agree upon a final budget by June 30, the end of the current fiscal year.
The unincorporated business tax double-charges thousands of businesses and discourages recently fired New Yorkers from free- lance work or starting their own businesses, Bloomberg and Quinn said.
Eliminating the tax for 11,000 businesses with incomes of less than $100,000, and reducing it for 6,000 earning up to $150,000, would result in combined savings of $25 million annually for those enterprises, the two said.
Another proposal would generate $167 million in new revenue in the fiscal year beginning July 1, aligning city tax laws with those in other states and ending tax burdens that Bloomberg and Quinn said stifle job creation.
Using only sales to compute the corporate tax would relieve companies located in multiple jurisdictions from the obligation of determining how much of the income should be attributable to earnings in the city.
Taxes for more than 27,000 New York City businesses will fall under the change, saving a combined $2.7 billion while it is phased in over 10 years, the mayor and council speaker said.
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6 Responses
Uh, Mr. Maya, when you came into office, the New York City sales tax was 8.25%. You then raised it to 8.375%. You want more Mr. Maya? How about cutting out all of those programs that you sought funding for and then you can ask us for more tax money. And who do you think will pay this new tax hike, out of work New Yorkers?
Maybe NYC should look to antiquity. The way the Romans paid for public services was that a rich person aspiring to high office had to show of his wealth and cleverness by paying for things (it could be circuses, sewers, etc.). Instead of campaign contributions going to annoying and divisive advertising (full of defamation and Loshon Hora), we’ld have public functions names for the candidate who paid it (the “Bloomberg sewer”, the “Quinn highway”, the “Weiner overpass”, perhaps even the “Hiking evening shift of the local police precint”)
Of courses, raising taxes during a recession is doomed to failure, and will probably result in less revenue.
That’s an easy way for you to pocket money. Do you boomberg honestly think the poor jobless ny’ers can handle this while your pocket puffs up from our sweat. how dare you?
We’re trapped, and Bloomberg knows it.
Most of us cannot follow billionaire Tom Golisano to Florida to escape these crooks.
Just today, I saw two–count them two–white-hatted parking enforcement goons pouncing on hapless residents of Boro_park, who are being subjected to what we use to call an “enforcement action.”
An “enforcement action” is usually undertaken by the City to drive a slumlord out of the neighborhood by making it impossible for him to continue to own his building. The building inspectors swarm over the building, nit-picking every little flaw and issuing hundreds of violations.
We are being violated by a City that no longer cares for the decent hard-working families who live here.
The only people who are being pandered-to by the degenerate Political Class are the lowest dregs of society and the corrupt financiers.
The is a replay of the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, Bread, Circuses, and all.
I can’t wait to pay more in NYC sales tax!!!
how else are they going to feed all those illegals immigrants?