By Benyamin Davidsons
New York City is reeling from its financial losses linked to the coronavirus shutdown. Now, the Big Apple risks losing its most important assets–its elite residents.
An activist, who pushes for pro-business policies, is warning that New Yorker’s wealthiest residents, who fled the city during the pandemic, “don’t want to come back”. Kathryn Wylde, President of Partnership for NYC, said Sunday that all the talk about raising taxing for the upper crust, is furthering deterring New Yorkers from coming back. “They want to go to the office, but they don’t want to come back to the city,” Wylde said Sunday on WABC 770 AM’s “The Cats Roundtable” radio show. “It’s hard to move a company… but it’s much easier for individuals to move,” said the economic watchdog, adding that most workplaces plan to allow remote work indefinitely.
Currently, the top one-percent of earners bring in 40 percent of New York state’s tax revenue, as per data from Wylde’s nonprofit, which works with the City’s business leaders, government, labor, and the civic sector to make a better New York. While it is true that NYS is in desperate need of funds, due to deficits caused by the impacts of the coronavirus crisis, taxing the rich may be the wrong route to take.
As reported by the NY Post, Wylde warned that New York’s elite will be increasingly motivated to leave the Big Apple for the Hamptons or Palm Beach, Florida, if New York increases taxes. The city’s wealthiest residents are already being harassed in protests, where citizens demonstrate aiming to increase taxes for billionaires. Progressive politicians including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who bolster these initiatives, and push the billionaire tax may prove to be counterproductive.
“I am very concerned about all the demonstrations against billionaires,” said Wylde, whose group represents Fortune 500 companies, international tech firms, real-estate giants and the New York Post’s parent company News Corp, as per the group’s website. “The threats of raising taxes on the wealthy. That concerns me, because we should be… trying to figure out how to get the half million people who left the city for the COVID… to come back.”
She added, “It’s a big concern that we’re going to lose more of our tax base then we’ve already lost.” NY already touts some of the highest income taxes for the upper class. Many economists agree that now that working for a New York firm may not necessitate actually being here, and since the city’s crowded lifestyle may have lost some of its allure, the city should rather be working on ways to lure in and retain wealthy residents.
