Demonstrators affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street movement interrupted a legislative budget hearing in Albany to make some noise about taxes. The protest interrupted testimony by Taxation & Finance Commissioner Thomas Mattox, who was being questioned about an agreement between T&F and the Inspector General’s office that enabled IG to look at tax returns of state employees. Here's video: more ›

City Council Speaker and presumptive mayoral candidate Christine Quinn announced a compromise on the controversial living wage bill yesterday. While it would require companies who receive substantial tax benefits from the city to raise employee wages to $10/hour with benefits or $11.50/hour without, according to Crain's the law would only apply to direct employees of the companies who receive benefits, not their tenants, thus significantly narrowing the initial scope of the legislation. more ›

ExxonMobil, Bank of America, General Electric, Chevron and Boeing had combined profits of $77.16 billion in 2010 but paid $0 in federal income taxes, according to a new report from NYC Public Advocate Bill De Blasio, who is outraged that many massive corporations are getting incredible tax breaks while also pouring money into political campaigns. Contributions have soared since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision last year, which gave corporations more freedom to spend money on politics. De Blasio's analysis found that these top five recipients of corporate tax breaks avoided paying $5.4 billion$3.7 billion in potential taxes last year. At the same time, they spent a combined $7.86 million in campaign contributions, a 7% jump over their 2008 political spending. But you can't hold it against them, it is their First Amendment right. more ›

The city often uses tax breaks as incentives to entice businesses (and the jobs they provide) to stay in town, which is how they were able to keep Jet Blue here. In this way, the tax breaks are like the city's desperate pleas during pillow talk, the equivalent of Mayor Bloomberg cooing breathlessly in the ear of his paramour would-be investors. Taken in that light, it's completely appropriate that several high-end nudie bars have been getting such tax breaks under an obscure property tax exemption. more ›

In his first attack ad last week, Andrew Cuomo accused gubernatorial opponent Carl Paladino of being a "welfare king" who pocketed $1.4 million in state tax breaks to create jobs, but created only one. But the Daily News reports that his companies actually netted closer to $3 million in tax breaks, and created a whopping 25 jobs in the process. more ›

Developer Tishman-Speyer was granted a stay that pauses a ruling which found it wrongfully raised rents at Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village. Tishman bought the rent-regulated complex for $5.4 billion, hoping to profit on market-rate rents, but a state appeals courts found the rent increases shouldn't have happened since it was receiving tax breaks associated with rent-regulated properties. The Observer reports, "Rather than immediately re-regulate the 4,000-plus apartments in Stuyvesant Town that have been converted to market rents since 1993, as the appellate court’s decision would require, the stay calls for Tishman to calculate how much money it would owe in back rent to market-rate tenants and put that money in an escrow account." A lawyer for Stuy Town tenants says that Tishman could owe tenants $200 million and the ruling affects many other landlords who got tax breaks for property improvements and then deregulated apartment. more ›