End of the $400 Property Tax Rebate
Since 2004, $400 rebate checks have been sent out to homeowners courtesy of the Bloomberg administration. Well, no more. The mayor is immediately axing the program, reports the NY Times, to help shore up the expected $4 billion budget deficit. Other quick fixes: raising personal income tax by as much as 15 percent; hiking the…
Since 2004, $400 rebate checks have been sent out to homeowners courtesy of the Bloomberg administration. Well, no more. The mayor is immediately axing the program, reports the NY Times, to help shore up the expected $4 billion budget deficit. Other quick fixes: raising personal income tax by as much as 15 percent; hiking the city’s portion of the state sales tax by as much as three percent; and charging a nickel for every plastic bag a consumer picks up at a store. “The mayor also detailed $1.5 billion in proposed budget cuts that would affect virtually every agency in city government,” they write. “The measures include closing libraries for a half day, eliminating dental programs and closing a clinic in East Harlem.” Should Wall Street rally and the economy heal, the mayor said, checks will go out again.
Mayor Cancels Rebates for Homeowners [NY Times]
Photo by tienmao.
Denton, US taxes (and here I mean including NY state and NYC taxes ) are not “extremely low” compared to many western democracies. I have family in both Britain and Germany who keep more of their salary than I do. Whatsmore, they get free healthcare and education to boot. No huge bloated military budget to account for.
Denton and Geekspice;
Really???? I am taken aback by your statements. New York’s decline was very real, and not just a matter of B&W photos and/or economic cycles. Are we talking about the NY of “Taxi Driver” or “French Connection” – both movies in very living color?? The NY of the blackout riots and 2300 murders per year? The NY wherein whole neighborhoods like Bushwick were going up in flames and owners were walking away from their properties? How about that famous photo of President Carter standing agape on Charlotte Street in the South Bronx, as he stares at a scene resembling “Berlin After the War”. Perhaps you were not mugged during that time, but I was, as well as 10’s of thousands of other folks just going about their business.
Geekspice: you misrepresent my statements. Nowhere do I say that taxes were the sole cause of this situation, nor do I advocate for special tax breaks for any particular corporation. My point is the overall level of taxation, and the number of taxes. Any municipality that arrogantly assumes that it can raise taxes at will, without considering competing locales, will send small and large business packing for friendlier climes. Just 2 weeks ago I returned from a trip to Malaysis, where I saw block after block of factories set up by American and Japanese electronic companies, to take advantage of low taxes and labor rates. This is the brutal reality of the current economic competiton.
miss muffett, my example was based on experience. at one point in my career, i was single and my pay was around that amount and i took home something in the range i stated (i don’t recall exactly how much, which is why i gave a range). in fairness, this might have reflected 401(k) and health insurance contributions, although the net cost of both of those things was not very high in relative terms. as boerum hill said, deductions get phased out, and the alternative minimum tax also rears its head (as gov palin would say).
in any event, whether take-home pay for someone making $250k is $130k or $150k or $170k, the point is that this is only enough in new york to buy an average home and therefore this income level does not qualify one as “rich.”
Miss Muffett,
Once your over $250K your deductions are essentially phased out. So, your effective marginal rate is pretty close to the stated marginal rate.
I thought the commuter tax was tossed out by some court a while ago… too bad. You make it here, leave us a taste.
Well, this is interesting!
We are around that 250k and I realize that makes us both gifted by some standards and average by others. Nevertheless, given where we started from (myself, a homeless teenage runaway, my wife, a Colombian immigrant who came here at the age of nine with seven brothers and sisters)I am not unhappy with our lot.
I realize that historically our tax rate is very low and by the standards of Western democracies our tax rate is extremely low. And one thing I share with Warren Buffet is that I wouldn’t mind paying more taxes to reduce the deficit, stimulate the economy, or pay for health insurance for those who are less fortunate. IMO taxes should be as low as possible but those who can afford to pay more should.
We have a house, a car, a second home, but we cook almost every night, save aggressively for retirement, put our kid thru college with no assistance, don’t buy expensive clothes, and don;t travel that much. Everyone makes their own choices. OTOH we both have to go to work tom’w and if we don’t we’ll have to give up some of those things.
Having said that it was leveraging up NY RE that allows some of this. If you bought a coop or condo or something else some years ago, you did well. If you’re just starting to make that 250k and renting you obviously will have to make tougher choices.
PS: I’m not into this ‘decline of New York’ thing. I think half of it was due to the photogs using b&w film, so things look worse. In 1974 when we were twenty, at the height of the ‘decline’, we were living in a new luxury rental on 79th and Amsterdam, we ate out all the time, we had subscriptions to the NY Philharmonic, we didn’t get mugged, we hung out in CP and the Boat Basin, and museums were there and free. Everything we love about New York City was there in 1974, and 1964, and 1984.
troll – Don’t make me sic Suze Orman on you.
snark – my credit card monthly bill alone is 2-3k monthly!!
It’s a gross oversimplification to try and explain the 25-year period to which you’re referring, which included multiple economic cycles, as some kind of inevitable result of the the NYC tax code. White flight and urban decay were national phenomenons with much more complex and intractable roots than the NYC commuter tax.
Studies have shown that the “tax breaks” that municipalities hand out to corporations to try and attract them to a city, or prevent them from leaving a city, almost never pay off for the taxpayers in that municipality – although of course they do for the corporations.
Fundamentally, the city has to pay its bills, and everyone has to do their fair share. NYC residents shouldn’t be bullied into shouldering the entire burden of the current downturn by the scare tactics that the freeloaders so love to use.