Over the past few days, Governor Cuomo has made it clearer than ever that his “tax cut” focus next year will be on something that can be more accurately described as a tax shift: the creation of a new property tax “circuit breaker” credit that homeowners could claim on their state income taxes. The credit would rebate a portion of local property taxes, to the extent that they exceed some set percentage of each homeowner’s income. Read More
Governor Andrew Cuomo has pulled the teeth out of his original proposal to reform the binding arbitration law for police and fire contract disputes, squandering an opportunity to deliver on a key mandate relief priority for many municipalities. Read More
E.J. McMahon talks to "Live from the State Capitol" host Fred Dicker about the Empire Center's Sunshine Week efforts and debunks Gov. Andrew Cuomo's property "tax freeze" plan. Read More
“Why are property taxes so high? Because we have 10,500 local governments,” Governor Andrew Cuomo said yesterday, repeating (yet again) his favorite mantra. Cuomo clearly wants to imply that he’s referring to 10,500 autonomous entities, falling over one another in a virtual orgy of bureaucratic excess. Read More
Cuomo has, indeed, slapped a cap on local property-tax levies — a real accomplishment. But his budget wouldn’t actually “cut” them. Instead, it would shift a little more of the local tax burden to the state tax base — in the long run promoting more growth in local spending and taxes. Read More
Why are New York's property taxes so high? Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo claims it is "because we have 10,500 local governments." That would be pretty alarming -- if it were true. In fact, according to the Census Bureau, New York has 3,453 local governments, a little less than one-third the governor's number. Relative to population, that's not especially large by national standards. Read More
“This so-called tax freeze bill is simply an election-year gimmick,” said E.J. McMahon of the Empire Center for Public Policy, a fiscally conservative think tank. Read More
McMahon pointed out that the number of local governments a county has doesn't matter. "It's the cost of the government services that drive up taxes," he said. "If you get rid of these special districts, you would still have to supply the services." Read More