The new state budget has managed to unite the free-market Empire Center and the far-left Working Families Party.
This meeting of the minds came over a classic move: Lawmakers slipped in a provision granting a fat tax break on sales the of private planes and luxury yachts.
Anyone buying either will pay sales tax on only the first $230,000. So it’s $9,200 in state tax for the “cheap” boat; same for a $1 million yacht.
The WFP and others on the left screamed at the sweet break for the 1-percenters of the yachting set.
Critics on the right decried the special-interest giveaway: Every bit of tax revenue lost here is cash that can’t go to lowering overall tax rates.
The excuse for the yacht break is a need to compete with states like Florida and Maryland, which both capped yacht-sales’ taxes.
As the Empire Center’s E.J. McMahon points out, this is the same dim thinking behind the state’s $420 million-a-year tax gift to the film and TV industries: New York “must” give away millions to the wealthy to remain competitive.
Sorry: The reason New York’s uncompetitive in these fields is the same reason it lags everywhere: It’s just plain overtaxed.
Albany needs to forget the special-interest stuff, and start doing something about that.
© 2015 New York Post
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