Tag: Andrew Cuomo

One of the biggest questions heading into New York’s fiscal 2016 Executive Budget presentation was how Governor Andrew Cuomo would choose to allocate an unprecedented, one-shot $5.4 billion windfall "surplus" originating with fines and penalties collected from financial institutions. Now we have the answer: under Cuomo's proposal, less than one-third of the money—barely $1.6 billion—would be absolutely, positively committed to core transportation infrastructure purposes. The rest would go to an assortment of stuff, only some of which would fit into even an extra-broad definition of “infrastructure.” Read More

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's 2015-16 budget proposal released Wednesday called for tax breaks for middle-class New Yorkers and small businesses as well as increasing the minimum wage and spending a third of a $5.4 billion surplus on New York City-area mass transit. Read More

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo Wednesday called for permanent extension of statewide "cap" limits that have held school-tax increases to record lows in recent years but did not reveal how much state-aid money would go to individual districts to help compensate for the loss in local tax revenues. Read More

Governor Andrew Cuomo's combined State of the State and budget message today included a promise to make permanent the historic property tax cap enacted at his initiative in 2011. Read More

If anyone still thinks Gov. Cuomo is serious about addressing New York’s economic woes, two ideas he rolled out this week should put a quick end to that fantasy. Read More

While Cuomo called his plan a tax cut, critics said the credit would merely shift state income taxes to help defray local property taxes. "He's shifting more of the burden to the income tax rather than changing policies" that drive up spending, said E.J. McMahon, president of the Empire Center for Public Policy, a nonprofit think tank that promotes free-market policies. "You're also encouraging more localities and school districts to increase taxes to the tax-cap limit and they can say to residents: 'Don't worry, you'll get it back.' " Read More

He didn't use the phrase himself, but the property tax credit unveiled yesterday by Governor Andrew Cuomo is of the type commonly known as a "circuit breaker." Like an electrical switch designed to automatically prevent a power overload, a circuit breaker tax credit is supposed to kick in when homeowners' property tax burdens overload their ability to pay. Cuomo's proposal would not represent a property tax cut but a means-tested state personal income break -- available only to some homeowners, and not available to owners of commercial, industrial or multi-family properties, which pay a hefty share of local taxes. Read More

Governor Andrew Cuomo last week announced a new "Innovation Venture Capital Fund" to invest up to $50 million in public funds into start-up companies. Meanwhile, the state’s existing venture fund, known as Innovate NY, is the subject of a federal audit focused on a firm whose managing director was named by Cuomo to his 2010 gubernatorial transition team and to a regional economic development council. Read More