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Comment by fennecfoxen | Hacker News Reader

New York had better not turn on the wealthy, because we rely on the taxes they pay for so much of our city budget. A distressingly small number of people make up a distressingly large percentage of revenues.

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Interesting quote from the article: "The top 0.05 per cent of earners — just 1,786 filers — accounted for 16 per cent of its income tax revenues in 2018"

If the top .05% have 30% of the wealth their taxes are too low. No sure what the actual numbers are, but it would be interesting to find out.

No one is taxing wealth, though. They are taxing income. Please be aware of the fact these are different, that such wealth can be accumulated despite steep income taxes, and that even if such taxes are desirable NYC is not necessarily the jurisdiction which (a) is able to collect those funds, or (b) deserves to have them.

Social engineering schemes at the city level have meaningful constraints.

Does that 30% wealth necessarily belong to NYC? It might not have been acquired there.

Does this not accurately reflect the real distribution of wealth, or in fact reflect it regressively (i.e. that distressingly small number of people are paying proportionately less than other citizens, they are just that astronomically wealthy)?

Can't get blood from a stone. The reason tax revenue comes from a small % of people is because those are the ones who've got all the money.

NY should rescind the Stock Transfer tax rebates. They are losing out on ~$16 billion in tax revenue annually.

Something tells me that many people won't pay those 16 billion and will move to a different place instead. NYSE isn't the only stocks market in the USA.

Good riddance. We shouldn't base our society on how good we are at begging rich people to chip in a bit.

FYI it's "good riddance".

thanks.

"Good riddance," you say, waving goodbye to all the Wall Street based jobs that pay Wall Street income tax to support universal pre-K in the Bronx. "We don't need their kind around here anyway ruining society" you say, as the MTA makes overnight service cuts permanent for lack of funding.

also, just to add. The Stock Transfer Tax started in 1909. They were paying until the 80s when the state started rebating it at 100%. Its is a 0.5% sales tax on the value of stock trades, 0.1% on debt and 0.005% on derivatives. The NYSE was doing fine when everyone was paying it.

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