AOC, socialists target NY’s top 5% with tax hikes — households making more than $250K would be hit: analysis
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her lefty Democratic Socialist comrades aren’t just targeting the 1 percenters anymore.
The New York City congresswoman and her progressive posse are pushing to slam the “top 5%” of New Yorkers with a massive total $15 billion in state income-tax hikes that would hit households making just over $250,000 a year — well below millionaires’ row, an analysis says.
The eye-popping proposed tax increase comes as a new study released Tuesday by Upgraded Points found that New York suffered the largest exodus of wealthy millennials ages 26 to 45 who made more than $200,000 than any other state — a 4.6% reduction, or a net drain, of 27,101 prime-aged taxpaying earners.
That’s more than double the 2.3% loss of affluent millennials in California, according to 2021 tax returns. Among the largest states, Florida had the biggest influx of millennials, a 5.6% jump.
But AOC and the socialist left claim that taxing even lower to mid-six-figure earners is good for New York.
“The vast majority of us have felt the strain of rising prices from the grocery aisle to the housing market,” the AOC-allied Democratic Socialists of America said in a recent Sept. 18 press release. “Meanwhile, the richest New Yorkers have grown their wealth since the pandemic, and it’s past time they pay their fair share.
“Along with real housing solutions, socialists in office have been fighting for full funding of schools, higher-education, and healthcare. We can pay for these public services by raising taxes on the top 5% of New Yorkers,” the statement said.
The targeted “top 5%” involves married New York couples with an adjusted gross income of more than $250,000, or each spouse averaging $127,500 each, according to analysis of income tax rolls by the Empire Center for Public Policy’s Tim Hoefer.
The current progressive tax rate is 6% for taxable income for households earning more than $161,550 to $323,200 and 6.85% for income greater than $323,200 and under $2,155,350.
A new 7.5% income rate would be imposed on income starting at $250,000 for households, Hoefer said.
The rate would jump from 6.85% to 10% for household incomes between $1 million and $2 million, according to the DSA-backed legislation sponsored by Assemblyman Demond Meeks (D-Rochester) and Sen. Robert Jackson (D-Manhattan).
The wealthiest New York households whose income exceeds $20 million would see their income tax rate skyrocket from 10.9% to 24%, according to the bill championed by the DSA.
New York City already has the highest combined state-city income tax rate in the country for the highest earners — 14.77%.
Those politicians listed as backing the proposed tax hike include Ocasio-Cortez, state Sens. Julia Salazar and Jabari Brisport of Brooklyn, state Sen. Kristen Gonzalez (D-Queens), Assembly members Emily Gallagher (D-Brooklyn), Marcela Mitaynes (D-Brooklyn), Phara Souffrant Forrest (D-Brooklyn), Zohran Mamdani (D-Queens) and Sarahana Shrestha (D-Kingston) and New York City Council members Tiffany Cabán of Queens and Alexa Aviles of Brooklyn.
“New York already has some of the highest income tax rates in the country,” protested Hoefer, the Empire Center’s president and CEO. “Raising those rates would only accelerate the trend of the state’s wealthiest— those already paying the bulk of income taxes — leaving the state.
“If [officials] aren’t going to work on reducing the tax burden, at the very least, the state should be focused on getting better outcomes with the ample tax dollars they already collect,” he said.
Hoefer first raised the alarm about the AOC-DSA proposed income tax hike in a Wall Street Journal column.
“I wanted to flag this proposal. Either it’s moving in the background or it’s being laughed at and no one is paying attention. It should be discussed openly,” he said.
In his op-ed piece, he said that AOC and socialists are calling for hikes that “spread the tax net far beyond Wall Street” and are “scooping up folks on Main Street—especially in the suburbs.”
Upstate Senate Republican Minority Leader Robert Ortt added to The Post on Tuesday, “We should be cutting taxes, not raising them.
“New York is already far too expensive, and this lack of affordability is forcing thousands of hardworking New Yorkers to flee to other states.”
More than 168,000 New York and Big Apple government employees earned more than $127,000 last year, and nearly half of the state’s school districts paid most of their teachers and administrators at least that much, as did 70 police or fire departments, Hoefer said.
“The move from targeting the top 1% to the top 5% is a recognition that the socialist program, to borrow from Margaret Thatcher, risks running out of other people’s money,” he said.
In testimony before the state Legislature’s budget committees Feb. 9, the New York City chapter of DSA touted the proposed hike to combat inequality and bolster government services for the needy.
“Currently, the New York state tax system is regressive, meaning that the wealthiest pay a smaller proportion of their incomes than the majority of New Yorkers,” DSA said.
DSA claimed the proposed tax increase would kick in at joint filers at $500,000, not the lower $250,000 figure cited by the Empire Center — which based its analysis on the state’s “top 5%” earner households, as specifically noted by the progressives.
Hochul and the legislature rejected the propsed tax hikes from the hard left when the state budget was approved earlier this year, but both the city and state face tougher budget problems going forward with federal emergency pandemic funds drying up and higher spending obligations linked to addressing the migrant crisis.
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the legislature last raised taxes on the rich in 2021 during the coffer-draining COVID-19 pandemic.
