Over the past seven years, New York’s cap on local property tax levies has generated billions of dollars in savings for homeowners and businesses, compared to previous trends. The cap has been especially effective in restraining school property taxes, which have long been the largest and fastest-growing component of New York’s tax burden. Read More
“Now that consumers are paying for the tax, it’s not punishing the pharmaceutical companies,” said Bill Hammond, director of health policy with the Empire Center for Public Policy. “The alleged wrongdoings has become a pretext for raising money and grabbing cash. I’m not saying we’re not spending any money, but if you looked at the budget you wouldn’t know we were at crisis levels.” Read More
Bill Hammond, director of health policy for the fiscally conservative Empire Center for Public Policy, acknowledged the negative ramifications of Trump's spending plan for New York, but dismissed the possibility of the "draconian" cuts being adopted. Read More
School District Property Tax Levies and Spending, 2011-12 to 2018-19 Read More
E.J. McMahon, chief researcher for the Empire Center for Public Policy, said the Assembly proposal amounts to "tax and spend fantasy." Read More
State lawmakers spent $7.8 million on postage for campaign-style mailings to constituents in the six-month run-up to last year’s elections, according to data added today to SeeThroughNY, the Empire Center’s transparency website. Read More
“The premise of the pied-à-terre tax — get money from wealthy nonresidents — sounds reasonable on the surface,” said E.J. McMahon of the fiscally conservative Empire Center for Public Policy think tank. “The main problem with the idea is the assumption that an entirely new tax is needed in what’s already the nation’s most heavily taxed and wealthy big city, in order to fund the capital plan of a transit system that has yet to demonstrate it can effectively spend the money it already has.” Read More
Although the IRS ruling hasn’t formally been made final yet and Bellone is promising a legal fight, E.J. McMahon of the Empire Center, an anti-tax think tank, said Suffolk taxpayers should be skeptical of putting money into the proposed charitable fund. “Any contribution to something like the Suffolk County fund is by no means guaranteed a tax deduction, so the message to taxpayers is don’t count on it,” McMahon said in an email. He called Bellone’s plan “nothing new — basically a Suffolk echo of Cuomo a year ago.” Read More