Gov. Andrew Cuomo and legislative leaders agreed Tuesday to income tax cuts for New Yorkers making $40,000 to $300,000, which will save most middle-class families $300 to $400 a year. That cut, some jobs programs, reductions in the commuter and manufacturing taxes, and flood relief will be funded by $2 billion from a tax increase on the wealthiest New Yorkers.

The tax cut for middle-class wage earners amounts to a fraction of 1 percentage point and will be funded by an increase in the rate for married taxpayers making more than $2 million a year and single taxpayers whose yearly income exceeds $1 million.

Those highest earners will pay an 8.2 percent rate, up from the 6.85 percent they would have paid beginning Jan. 1 after a temporary surcharge expires. New Yorkers filing jointly who make $300,000 to $2 million, or single filers making $150,000 to $1 million, will pay the same 6.85 rate they would have paid come Jan. 1 had there been no deal.

The $2 billion tax increase follows months of efforts by Assembly Democrats to hike taxes on the wealthy despite promises by Cuomo, also a Democrat, and the Senate’s Republican majority that they’d block any increases in one of the nation’s most heavily taxed states…..

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