by | BLOG, BUSINESS, ECONOMY, NEW YORK
I Love NY (money)
Knowing that Gov. Cuomo’s is considered a possible contender for 2016, his use of taxpayer funds in this regard is appalling. My latest on Canada Free Press this morning:
It is an outrage that Gov. Andrew Cuomo is spending up to $140 million of taxpayer money and funds received for disaster relief, to publicize the advantages of conducting business in New York. New York is indisputably one of the most unfriendly business states, with a Legislature that piles huge administrative burdens onto businesses and a Department of Taxation that is among the most aggressive in the country.
Thanks to the NY Legislature, the state demands a payment of an LLC fee every Jan. 30, causing large administrative burdens disproportionate to a small amount of additional tax revenue. It also requires a high minimum-wage, creating an unnecessary and expensive burden on small businesses.
The state also introduced a brand new “MTA” tax with new forms to fill out as a separate levy, simply because they did not want to take the heat for raising existing rates. When a huge outcry against this ridiculous tax was made, the state’s “fix” was to exempt some lower income businesses while making the complications for the remaining businesses even worse.
New York State recently created a new burden on all employers requiring every employer to make specific annual reports to each of its employees in significant detail, a provision clearly intended more to provide fodder for employer lawsuits than to protect the rights of workers. As long as Sheldon Silver continues as Speaker of the NYS Assembly (and a current partner in an anti-business civil litigation law firm), the legislature will continue to make it inordinately difficult to carry on with business in New York. It should be noted that some well known restaurant organizations have sworn never to open any new facilities in New York State, specifically due to its impossible and litigation-friendly business environment.
The Legislature continues to add the latest nanny state employment regulations each year, making New York a gold mine for lawyers to sue employers over technicalities. Its insistence on giving enormous amounts to its public-service unions guarantees that the tax burden will keep growing in the years ahead. And New York has the “only one in the world” statute (called the Triborough Amendment) — that requires the state to continue paying its public service employees on the items contained within an expired contract — making it impossible to negotiate any austerity.
The New York Department of Taxation is no better, as it ruthlessly goes after extra New York City taxes paid by state residents and New York state taxes paid by non-New York state residents. It demands huge and automatic penalties built into tax law on each assessment, penalties that are used as levers to get the New York taxpayer or business owner to agree to compromises that they often don’t really owe.
One anecdote that encapsulates this mentality is the individual who lived with his family out-of-state. He bought a home for his elderly parents in Staten Island and was successfully taxed as a NY City resident. The state’s determination? He had a key to the front door, and a few items of clothing in the closet!
Clearly, for the average person in New York, it is an onerous state in which to do business. If Mr. Cuomo wants to create a better business image, he must make the state a better and more business-friendly place from the ground up. Instead of trying to deceive people with taxpayer funded propaganda into thinking that New York has a healthy business climate, use that $140 million to reform his deplorable Legislature and Department of Taxation. Any non-NY business that falls for Gov. Cuomo’s propaganda campaign gets what it deserves.
by | BLOG, ECONOMY, NEW YORK, POLITICS
That’s me!
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s website proudly proclaims “as the mother of two young children, Senator Gillibrand knows that working families are struggling in this difficult economy.” But Sen. Gillibrand’s positions regarding the economy don’t support such a statement.
When Gillibrand appeared on Meet The Press on April 21, she stated that she refuses to support even the trivial chain “CPI” adjustment of Social Security benefits “because it is not significantly affecting the current deficit”. This reform (backed even by President Obama in his April 7 budget) changes the formula for calculating cost-of-living increases in Social Security, thereby reducing future raises slightly. Gillibrand’s extreme position, on the other hand, flatly spurns any changes that will reduce the looming catastrophe of Social Security.
Gillibrand is well aware that the reason that the current deficit is not being significantly affected is that her children’s future retirement payments are being confiscated, being used to pay for current retirees (whose retirement payments were similarly confiscated). This is the well known Ponzi method of entitlements – taking money from current workers who think — and are being told by Ms. Gillibrand – that they are paying for their own retirement, when in fact the money is being stolen to pay for others whose money was similarly taken under false pretenses.
The current total Social Security liabilities, per the Annual Trustees Report, has ballooned to $20.5 trillion. The liabilities are the promised future payments to workers currently paying into the system. Gillibrand is aware that each year that goes by significantly increases the burden to her own children – and ours, which weakens the economy. For her staunch advocacy of this position, she should be granted the well-earned title of PONZI MOM.
by | ARTICLES, ECONOMY, NEW YORK
Having solved all other fiscal problems in NY, our legislators are working to kill more businesses with this bill. Below is an article from Cranes New York
Advocates for a law requiring city businesses to offer their employees paid sick days step up their efforts as similar measures advance in Connecticut and Philadelphia.
Connecticut legislators are about to pass a bill to make their state the first in the nation to require employers to provide workers with paid sick time. And City Council members in Philadelphia are expected to vote Thursday on a bill mandating up to seven paid sick days per year for workers.
With that momentum, advocates in New York City are stepping up efforts to revive a sick-pay bill shelved last year by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn over concerns that it would harm small businesses.
“Making sure New Yorkers can take a day off when they are sick or need to care for their children—without having to miss a paycheck or worry about losing their job—is the right thing for workers,” said Councilwoman Gale Brewer, the bill’s lead sponsor. “Our neighbors [Connecticut and Philadelphia] recognize the same logic and know it’s the right thing for businesses, too. The time has come for paid sick days in New York City.”
The Council bill is being pushed by the New York State Paid Family Leave Coalition, an alliance of more than 400 labor, community, business and women’s groups. As in Connecticut, where lawmakers could vote Friday or Saturday on sick pay, the local chapter of the Working Families Party is an active member of the group. Members are meeting regularly and expect to soon re-launch a public campaign geared towards bringing the bill to a vote this fall.
Ms. Brewer said she will be meeting with fellow Council members to let them know about the developments on sick pay around the country.
Her bill would require businesses with 20 or more employees to offer nine sick days a year and smaller businesses to give five. It has 35 sponsors in the Council, one more than needed to overcome a potential veto by Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Despite her members’ sponsorship, Ms. Quinn did not let the bill get to a vote last year, contending it would have a crushing impact on small businesses in a down economy. She promised to revisit the issue every two months, assessing whether economic conditions had improved.
The city’s economic recovery has outpaced that of the nation, with the five boroughs adding nearly 40,000 jobs in the first four months of the year, according to real estate services firm Eastern Consolidated. In the past 19 months, the city has recovered more than half of the jobs lost in the downturn, while the nation has recovered only about 20% of its losses.
“Even though the city’s fared better, we’re far from seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, especially when you’re looking at small businesses,” said Linda Baran, president of the Staten Island Chamber of Commerce, part of a coalition of chambers that led opposition to the bill last year. “Locally, I don’t know any small businesses that are hiring. They’re concerned about making their payroll.”
Carl Hum, president of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, said that one only need to look at Friday’s weak national jobs report to know that the economy is “still pretty fragile.” He said that the Connecticut bill appears to be moving forward “over the objection of business groups” and that “the difference here in New York is that we have a speaker that brought the business community in to talk about the bill.”
A spokesman for Ms. Quinn said that conversations with Ms. Brewer about paid sick days are ongoing. Ms. Brewer said that the speaker has asked about the upcoming vote in Philadelphia. It’s unclear if she will be swayed by efforts in other states, which are being led primarily by the 15-state consortium Family Values @ Work.
In addition to the votes in Connecticut and Philadelphia, the Seattle City Council is set to introduce a sick-pay bill on Wednesday; a bi-partisan group of state legislators in Georgia led by five Republicans is supporting a measure to allow workers to use sick time to care for children and other family members; and a coalition in Denver is pressing for a ballot initiative on sick days in November. San Francisco and Washington already require paid sick days.
The White House has also entered the fray, hosting a series of workplace flexibility forums—including one in New York City this week—designed to help American workers meet the demands of their jobs without sacrificing the needs of their families.
“We know New York is different, and we’re willing to work towards what would make sense for everybody,” Ms. Brewer said. “But I’m hoping that the national momentum pushes us here.”
