ALBANY – Four New York State Senators are seeking to prevent the increase of the Governor’s MTA Payroll Mobility Tax, and call for the repeal of the tax outside of the city. Two Democrats and a Republican from the Hudson Valley, along with a Long Island Democrat sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins asking for her assistance in preventing Governor Hochul from expanding the tax that has been imposed on employers outside of New York City since 2009.
The 2009 tax law enacted a tax on many employers within the MTA region, including community colleges, local governments, and hospitals. Democratic Senators James Skoufis, Michelle Hinchey, and Monica Martinez, joined by Republican Senator Rob Rolison are asking that community colleges, hospitals, and municipalities outside of New York City be exempted from the total MTA payroll tax rather than just the proposed increase. “Significant public funds flow to these groups and it is as anti-taxpayer as much as it is nonsensical to siphon some of those funds to an unrelated MTA tax,” the senators said. The lawmakers pointed out that, since being enacted, schools, libraries, and other groups have been exempted from the tax that primarily supports New York City transit.
The lawmakers noted that businesses within New York City are the primary beneficiaries of the tax because they are exempt from it. The senators say that the exempted NYC businesses are getting special treatment because riders use MTA buses and trains to get to work in the city compared to a limited number of New York City residents that use MTA services to travel to work outside of the five boroughs.
“The vast majority of revenue from this proposal will be injected into New York City Transit,” said the senators in the letter, who also said “This proposal maintains the large majority of the $800 million in projected revenue by preserving the payroll tax increase in New York City. The estimated fiscal impact to exempt community colleges, hospitals, and non-New York City municipalities is a small fraction of the realized revenue. Thus, this plan injects hundreds of millions of new dollars into the MTA while protecting the overtaxed suburbs and correcting problems in the underlying, existing tax.
