Adding to New York’s already high tax burden would be both unnecessary and dangerous for the state’s economy, according to a new report from the Empire Center.

Titled “Seven Reasons Not to Raise Taxes in New York,” the report shows that state’s taxes are already among the steepest in the U.S., including for the top 1 percent.

It also documents an alarming sign of erosion in the state’s high-end tax base: Based on an analysis of IRS data, it finds that New York’s share of tax filers reporting income of $1 million or more fell from 12.7 percent of the U.S. total in 2010 to 8.7 percent in 2022 – the largest percentage point drop of any state.

If that share had stayed constant, the state and the city would have collected an additional $10 billion in revenue, the report estimates.

New York’s high tax burden “makes almost everything more expensive: holding a job, running a business, owning a house, driving a car, shopping for food, seeing a doctor,” writes the report’s author, Empire Center Senior Fellow Bill Hammond. “If Governor Hochul, Mayor Mamdani and the rest of New York’s elected leaders are serious about turning things around – and making the state more affordable – they should be cutting taxes, not raising them.”

To read the full report, follow this link.

For more information, contact Bill Hammond at [email protected].

The Empire Center, based in Albany, is an independent, not-for-profit, non-partisan think tank dedicated to promoting policies that can make New York a better place to live, work and raise a family.