ALBANY — Message to Govs. Cuomo and Christie: The states you run are the tax hells of America.
The Empire and Garden states ranked second worst and dead last, respectively, for the second year in a row in the Tax Foundation’s annual business-tax climate rating.
This time, New York’s 49th-place finish was based on a snapshot six months into Cuomo’s new administration.
“Our tax rate is too freakin’ high,” said New York Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb (R-Canandaigua). “All of us in the Legislature, and the governor, have to put policies in place that reverse that course. When we do that, jobs will follow.”
The 75-year-old conservative-leaning think tank based its rankings on 118 variables led by a weighted mix of income, sales, corporate, property and unemployment-insurance tax rates, in that order.
New York’s 8.97 percent top income-tax rate — since reduced — as well as its 7.1 percent corporate tax and 8.48 percent combined state and local sales-tax rates put it near the bottom.
New Jersey won its dubious basement honor with the help of an equally high top income-tax rate and property-tax rate, a 9 percent top corporate-tax rate and its 7 percent state sales- tax rate. Christie has proposed slashing Jersey’s income tax rates by 10 percent.
Cuomo and lawmakers reduced the top tax rate on New Yorkers earning $40,000 to $300,000 this year. Although the top rate for millionaires was cut to 8.82 percent, it remains among the nation’s highest and well above the 6.85 percent rate that had been scheduled to go back into effect Jan. 1.