Anyone who thinks Zohran Mamdani’s plans to tax the rich are remotely workable, beware: The city’s share of “the rich” is already shrinking.
So if Mamdani gets his way, there soon might be no one at all left to squeeze.
From 2010 to 2022, the Citizens Budget Committee reports, New York state’s share of taxpayers with more than $1 million in federal adjusted gross income shrunk by almost a third — from 12.7% to 8.7%.
The city’s share also fell, from 6.5% to 4.2%.
New York’s loss was other states’ gain, particularly Florida, Texas and even California.
Thanks to inflation, the gross number of million-plus earners in New York grew, but it less than doubled; it tripled in California and Texas and quadrupled in Florida.
New York’s losses come with a steep cost, the CBC warns: “Had New York State and City had the same share of millionaires in 2022 as they did in 2010, the State would have received $10.7 billion more” in personal-income-tax revenue, and “the City $2.5 billion more. More millionaires mean more PIT revenue.”
Why are the wealthy and businesses choosing other states? The city and state’s combined highest-in-the-nation income-tax rates surely have a lot to do with it.
Yet Mamdani wants to raise taxes on the rich and on businesses even higher, and much of the Legislature agrees.
New York will lose even more ground, with revenues falling far short of the socialists’ starry dreams.
Hiking taxes risks “perpetuating or accelerating the decline,” warns CBC boss Andrew Rein.
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Yes, other factors — crime rates, schools, broader quality of life — are important, too, in determining where rich folks and companies locate.
But Mamdani is essentially pro-crime, and vows to keep kids locked in failing city schools.
The CBC has it right: “Millionaires are critical to New York’s tax base.”
Though they make up of less than 1% of the state’s and city’s resident taxpayers, they account for 44% of Albany’s income-tax revenue and 40% of the city’s.
If New York pols hope to hang on to the rich — i.e., to their tax base — they should look not at raising taxes but lowering them.