By: Jared Evan
The Covid pandemic taught companies that remote working can become a standard way of operating a business, and now the businesses that hung in NYC during the pandemic are considering relocating completely out of NYC and the state itself, after the announcement of a proposed $7 billion tax hike.
Fox News pointed out: At least 20 finance and tech companies are already poised to leave for sunny, low-tax Florida, said Kathyrn Wylde, CEO of the business-backed Partnership for New York City. “The Legislature’s proposals will move us in the opposite direction by driving away the businesses and tax base required to do that,” said powerful Real Estate Board of New York President James Whelan.
Last week The NY Post reported:
Both houses of the state legislature have proposed budgets that include nearly $7 billion in new and increased taxes on businesses and the rich.
The tax increases come despite a $100 billion avalanche of fresh federal aid to New York, including $12.6 billion directly to state government coffers.
Assembly leaders crowed in a press release Sunday that state lawmakers are proposing a $208.3 billion budget for the next fiscal year.
Their plan includes a 22.6 percent increase in spending — or $16.9 billion — over last year. That’s more than 10.5 percent higher than what Gov. Andrew Cuomo is proposing.
The soak-the-rich rhetoric always plays popular to Americans of all political persuasions, however the repercussions of these kind of policies are usually not considered by the general public.
Big names on Wall Street have already threatened to pack their bags if Albany enacts a stock-transfer tax, which is proposed in an active bill. The state would claim a percentage of the proceeds from every purchase or sale of stock, or other security, under the measure, Fox News reported
“While New York has remained a center of gravity for the financial industry, many employees of ‘Wall Street’ firms are migrating to Florida, Texas, and other states with hospitable tax policies,” Stacey Cunningham, the president of the New York Stock Exchange, wrote last month in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.
“The New York Stock Exchange belongs in New York. If Albany lawmakers get their way, however, the center of the global financial industry may need to find a new home,” she warned. A Nasdaq spokesman did not return a message on its plans.
NY could become a drastically different state if these intense tax hikes are passed. With an embattled governor and NYC going to the polls to elect a new mayor in November, all eyes will be on the big apple, and voters choosing “wokeness” and socialism over sane leadership could quickly take NY back to the 1970’s where, poverty and crime were king.
