NSYUT cheers Silver’s millionaire tax push

by Rick Karlin

It’s been a good couple of days for NYSUT, the state’s largest teachers union. After getting blindsided Friday with last-minute changes to new rules about teacher evaluations, the union on Wednesday was noting that more than 90 percent of school budget votes, so far, have passed on Tuesday’s budget votes.

And now Assembly Democratic Majority Speaker Sheldon Silver is reviving his push for the millionaires tax despite Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s insistence that it is dead and the Senate GOPs aversion to taxes. Here’s NYSUT’s statement:

New York State United Teachers today commended Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver for introducing legislation to extend the income tax surcharge on the state’s wealthiest residents. NYSUT said the Speaker and Assembly majority, by dedicating a sizeable percentage of the new funding to education, clearly recognize the state must share responsibility with its citizenry to invest in public schools.

NYSUT President Richard C. Iannuzzi noted that voters approved 93.5 percent of school budgets statewide and about 99 percent on Long Island, according to preliminary counts, even though $1.3 billion in state education cuts forced many school boards – after exhausting other options – to increase local property taxes.

“Speaker Silver is showing tremendous leadership for recognizing the state has an obligation to fairly fund public schools and, in fact, should be sharing in the investment being made by local taxpayers in better learning opportunities for students,” Iannuzzi said.

“In every corner of the state, New Yorkers, after carefully examining the difficult choices made by their school boards, voted ‘yes’ in near record numbers on school budgets to ensure students and education programs did not suffer further harm,” Iannuzzi said. “Voters showed they value public education, support their local schools and recognize that teachers and other employees have, too, sacrificed in order to preserve programs and jobs. The state – and the wealthy — must do their part, too.”

NYSUT Executive Vice President Andrew Pallotta said Silver’s plan would provide a tax break for some New Yorkers, while ensuring that “those with million-dollar incomes don’t enjoy billions of dollars in tax cuts they didn’t ask for, and don’t need. Eighty percent of New Yorkers oppose education cuts. It’s clear the speaker is doing the right thing by asking the most affluent in our society to share in the sacrifices that middle-class, working New Yorkers have already made.”

NYSUT, the state’s largest union, represents more than 600,000 teachers, school-related professionals, academic and professional faculty in higher education, professionals in education and health care and retirees. NYSUT is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers, National Education Association and the AFL-CIO.

New York’s Vanishing Millionaires–and Other Myths

By Robert Fran

High state taxes are chasing out the rich, according to the antitax crowd. We have it in Maryland, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.

Now comes some new research claiming that taxes are driving the rich out of New York. But like the other research, it contains some fundamental flaws.

The Partnership for New York City, comprised of business leaders, says the state’s “Millionaire’s Tax” has forced some of the state’s most valuable earners and tax-payers to other states. The tax, which applied to those earning $200,000 or more, expires at the end of 2011. But some Democrats want to keep it from expiring.



The Partnership says New York lost a net 1.7 million residents from 1999 through 2008, and the average net worth of people who left was $338,000, citing stats from the Center on Wealth and Philanthropy. (Note, this is before the “Millionaire’s Tax” was imposed).

The report says that from 2007 to 2009, when the Millionaire’s tax was imposed, New York saw a 9.4% decline in state taxpayers who earn $1 million or more. Citing stats from Phoenix Marketing, the Partnership says the number of $1 million earners fell to 345,892 in 2009 from 381,786 in 2007.

It sounds scary. But it isn’t entirely accurate. As the liberal Citizens for Tax Justice points out, the 9.4% decline was actually for people who have wealth of $1 million, not for those who earn $1 million or more. And during that time, the nation as a whole lost wealth and millionaires because of the stock-market swings.

But there is something else to note in the Partnership’s research. The number of millionaires in New York actually increased in 2010–while the tax was in place. New York had 381,197 millionaires in 2010, an increase of 35,000 millionaires from 2009. This again likely reflects wealth gained from the stock market and Wall Street, not from taxes.

Kathryn Wylde, the president and CEO of the Partnership, was kind enough to call me while she was out of the country to clarify. She said the population number is indeed for wealth not income. But when I pointed out that the numbers still failed to prove a link between tax changes and the population of rich people, she said that “anecdotally” she was hearing a lot about wealthy people leaving the state, to lower-tax New Jersey, Connecticut and Florida.

“It’s a very difficult thing to measure,” she said. “We get a lot of it anecdotally. Our evidence is from conversations with lots of high earners and there is an increasing tendency to gravitate to lower-tax places.”

She is absolutely right. Measuring the precise movements of the wealthy is difficult without data. It is even harder to measure the reasons for their movements. And that is why we should take all of these studies for what they are–political talking points with very little supporting data.

It is very possible rich people are leaving New York because of high taxes. But there is little or no supporting evidence.

Do you think the rich are leaving New York because of taxes?

State Assembly says okay to gay marriage; fate rests with Senate

by Glenn Blain

ALBANY – The state Assembly gave its approval to same-sex marriage Tuesday night but the issue’s fate in New York remains uncertain.

“What we are doing is legislating civil, and I do mean civil rights,” said Assemblyman Matthew Tittone, a Staten Island Democrat who is gay. “I am not looking for the right to force the Pope to preside over my big fat gay wedding.”

Critics charged that the legislation, which was introduced by Gov. Paterson last month, would undermine traditional marriage and force religious institutions that run public facilities – such as dormitories and catering halls – to accept gay couples.

“The issue to me is the bible, the Torah,” said Assemblyman Dov Hikind, D-Brooklyn. “It is about God. It is about what I believe God wants.”

State Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith (D-Queens) supports same-sex marriage but has said he won’t bring the measure to the floor unless there’s enough votes for it to pass.

The Working Families Party is calling for New York to return to a progressive taxation system.

By Tom Wanamaker
TIMES ALBANY CORRESPONDENT

At a Monday press conference in Albany, party leaders, tax advocates and a bipartisan group of almost three dozen members of the Assembly outlined a two-part strategy to ease the state’s increasingly heavy local property tax burden, while simultaneously maintaining the revenue stream supported by these taxes.

With an Eye on Connecticut, Filmmakers Get a Tax Break in New York

By Lisa W. Foderaro

After watching neighboring states raise their film tax credits to lure film production, New York State has moved to triple its tax incentive — to 30 percent — under the budget approved this week by the State Legislature.

State and county officials, as well as representatives of the film industry, cheered the increase, saying it put New York back in the running with Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and other states that had expanded their film incentives. The proposed tax credit would become law when Gov. David A. Paterson signs the budget, which he is expected to do.

State Must Make Taxes Fair Again

By: Alan B. Lubin, Executive Vice President of New York State United Teachers and BALCONY Board Member
Sunday, April 30, 2006-Albany Times Union

When it comes to state income taxes, what do gas station attendants or retail clerks, struggling to pay bills and keep their homes, have in common with billionaire Donald Trump?

Well, because of New York’s misguided tax policies, Donald Trump and middle-class teachers, salesmen, auto mechanics and cops in the Capital Region pay state income taxes at the same rate.

Working families worrying about their rising property taxes and Wall Street’s wealthiest financiers, who worry about whatever multimillionaires worry about, pay the same top rate of 6.85 percent, a tax bracket that kicks in at just $40,000 in adjusted income for married couples.