Officials in New York, New Jersey, California, and Maryland are going to the mat against the White House, reworking their tax codes to ease residents’ pain from new limits to federal deductions for state, local and property taxes.
E.J McMahon, founder of the fiscally conservative Empire Center, a think tank in Albany, states that this is "the kind of thing that emerges in an ivory tower with not much thought about the practicality." [Read_more]
If the state Legislature and Gov. Andrew Cuomo don't act, some New Yorkers would be on the hook for another $1.5 billion in tax hikes, according to state records and experts.
E.J. McMahon, founder of the Empire Center, a fiscally conservative think tank in Albany, Cuomo has called the federal tax law "a missile aimed at the heart of New York, and he’s got his own missile aimed at the same people." [Read_more]
Governor Andrew Cuomo wants to overhaul the state tax system by swapping state income for payroll taxes, which remain deductible under the new federal tax code.
E.J. McMahon, research director of the Empire Center, a fiscal watchdog group, notes that the loss of state deductibility could cost taxpayers an estimated $400 million. [Read_more]
Upstate New York not making the short list shouldn't be an indictment of the region, said E.J McMahon, founder of the fiscally conservative Empire Center, a think tank in Albany. [Read_more]
Conservative critics contend that the complexity could be frightening to corporations that might already be wary of the state’s high-tax reputation. “It’s so complicated, it would be repellent in its own right,” said E.J. McMahon, the founder of the Empire Center for Public Policy. [Read_more]
The number of educators banking six-figure annual pensions in New York City surged 23 percent last year, according to the Empire Center for Public Policy. [Read_more]
Hard up for cash, Gov. Cuomo is trying to sneak through a $1.5 billion “stealth” income-tax hike — on top of $1 billion in other tax bumps.
As Empire Center fiscal expert E.J. McMahon notes, key parts of New York’s tax law are pegged to the federal model, which changed sharply last month. Yet Cuomo isn’t calling for simple fixes in state law to protect New York taxpayers from paying more. [Read_more]
The US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments next month in a case that could dramatically curb the power of public-sector unions — especially in New York. [Read_more]
New York’s government unions could lose up to $110 million a year depending on the outcome of an upcoming Supreme Court case that is fighting automatic union due deductions, according to a study released Tuesday. [Read_more]
New Yorkers pay the price for class action lawsuit frivolity — through “higher auto insurance rates, higher health care costs and higher taxes,” says a report by the Empire Center for Public Policy. [Read_more]
For Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, the idea must seem like sweet payback for the pains inflicted on his state by the new federal tax plan: an elegant workaround whereby New York could replace its state income tax with a payroll tax and leave Washington, not Albany, on the hook for billions of dollars in lost revenue.
But like so many white-paper plans, the proposal — while still in its larval stage — is already running headlong into a barrage of practical questions about how precisely such a switcheroo might work.
“The more you think about this,” said E.J. McMahon, a conservative economist and founder of the Empire Center for Public Policy, “the more it makes your head spin.” [Read_more]
