BOLTON LANDING—A former state tax commissioner who sat on both tax policy commissions convened last year by Governor Andrew Cuomo said it would be “a real challenge” for state officials to let New York’s “millionaires’ tax” expire on schedule at the end of 2017.

“The temporary millionaires’ tax raises a lot of money. … It’s hard for me to see the political situation accommodating a $3 billion tax cut which is just going to go to the top half-percent of the population,” said James Wetzler, a retired tax consultant who served in the administration of Mario Cuomo. “The question is, how are you going to pay for this tax cut, assuming you want to do it. There’s no attractive way to do it.”

Wetzler spoke during a Thursday morning panel at the Business Council of New York State’s annual conference at the Sagamore Hotel.

Alongside E.J. McMahon, who leads the fiscally conservative Empire Center for Public Policy and Ken Pokalsky, the Business Council’s top lobbyist, Wetzler spoke about some of the unimplemented recommendations in a tax simplification report issued last November and their potential political future.

It was dead on arrival, the men noted, and likely will be if it comes up in the coming legislative session.

Pokalsky noted that the federal government is poised to reconsider some exemptions in the tax code that could include capping the amount of state income tax—which for wealthy New Yorkers is not a small number—that can be deducted from a federal tax return.

McMahon said that would be a “hair-on-fire moment for New York State.”

He attacked the current income tax system as a “mess,” and contrary to boasts by Cuomo and legislative leaders about changes they adopted at the end of 2011, described their renewal of most of the millionaires’ tax (married to rate decreases for middle-income taxpayers) as “set of expedient moves to raise revenue and quiet Occupy Wall Street—that was all it was, and the can was kicked down the road another three years.”

Cuomo’s second tax commission, which was co-chaired by former governor George Pataki, recommended a property tax freeze, but also stated that “some commission members favor setting aside any future surplus to help ensure the 6.85 [top income tax] rate is restored in 2018.”

Cuomo has said he favors cutting taxes when possible, but it’s difficult to predict whether the state’s fiscal plan will accommodate the millionaires’ tax sunset.

© 2014 Capital New York