Results tagged “salestaxhike”

Mayor Bloomberg unveiled the 2010 fiscal year budget yesterday and acknowledged that that his proposed sales tax hike, which would raise the tax rate to 8.875%, is no fun. During the press conference, he said, "It is true that sales tax, if you have the same rate, is a regressive tax, but the bottom line is, the people that have more money buy a lot more things, and they spend a lot more of it. Is it a good tax? No. None of these taxes are good taxes... I'm not happy about raising any tax."

Upon news that Governor Paterson and other state lawmakers might raise the sales tax to deal with the state's huge deficit, WCBS 2 asked New Yorkers what they thought if the tax went over 9%. Naturally, the responses were things like "Oh no, this is ridiculous," "Everything is going up except salaries so that's not a good thing, especially in a recession," and "Of course it would definitely affect how much I bought." As for the rumored tax hike for those who make over $500,000, Mayor Bloomberg said, "51, 52 percent of our taxes come from people making $500,000 or more... Five thousand people back in 2006, it's probably a little more diverse today, but in 2006, 5,000 people paid 30 percent of the taxes in New York City.... If only 1,500 of that 5,000 people move to Connecticut, that would cut 10 percent of our tax base, that's another $3.5 billion."