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Let ‘millionaire’ tax die out, Cuomo says

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Read my lips: No new taxes — and that includes levies on wealthy New Yorkers, Gov. Cuomo vowed yesterday.

Cuomo said he was against extending a “temporary” income-tax surcharge imposed on high-income earners in 2009 and set to expire at the end of 2011, despite having to close a massive $10 billion budget gap.

Cuomo indicated that renewing the surcharge would amount to a tax hike, which would violate his campaign pledge not to boost taxes.

“The old way of solving the problem was continuing to raise taxes on people, and we just can’t do that anymore. The working families of New York cannot afford tax increases. The answer is going to have to be that we’re going to have to reduce government spending,” he said.

Democrats often exclude higher-income earners when they invoke the phrase “working families” during tax-policy discussions.

But Cuomo said working families includes higher-income earners.

“They work, too,” he said, noting that his opposition to tax hikes is “across the board.”

“My point is: What has been the knee-jerk response in New York? ‘Well, expenses will continue to go up, but we’ll raise taxes.’ Those days are over.”

Letting the tax expire could cost the state treasury a billion dollars in the fiscal year that will begin on April 1 and upward of $4 billion in the 2012 fiscal year, according to state budget projections.

A coalition of union leaders and others dependent on government largesse are already running radio ads that say wealthy Wall Streeters must also pitch in to solve the budget crisis.

United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew said extending the tax surcharge on the wealthy has to be considered. Trying to solve the $10 billion budget gap solely through spending reductions would lead to a “catastrophic budget” akin to the city’s 1975 fiscal crisis that fueled massive layoffs of teachers, cops and firefighters, and eliminated school programs and delayed crucial bridge maintenance, he said.

The tax surcharge increases the state income tax to 7.85 percent for a single taxpayer earning between $200,000 and $500,000. The tax rate jumps to 8.97 percent for taxpayers making more than $500,000.

If the surcharge lapses as scheduled, the top tax rate drops to 6.85 percent.

According to the pro-business NYC Partnership, the top 1 percent of income earners paid 41 percent of New York’s state income taxes last year.

fredric.dicker@nypost.com