High taxes are already killing New York’s future

Of course, even if New York weren’t on course to hike taxes again in the near future, the ones it already imposes are slowly killing the entire state.

That was made even more plain by the new Citizens Budget Commission analysis showing our ever-shrinking share of the nation’s top earners, a decline that now costs New York roughly $11 billion a year in lost tax revenues.

From 2010 to 2022, before Mayor Zohran Mamdani took office vowing to “tax the rich,” the Empire State’s share of America’s millionaires fell from 12.7% to 8.7%. 

That’s a result of some high earners moving away, and of the state’s growing failure to attract or foster the people who’ll become big earners — choosing to build the booming businesses of the future in states that aren’t determined to gouge them in every possible way.

That’s why Florida and Texas are upping their “millionaire shares.”

And the decline is likely to grow even worse: Wall Street is still the nation’s finance capital, but Gotham’s edge is steadily shrinking as the industry spreads out — and alternatives like the Texas Stock Exchange grow more viable.

Have no doubt: They will be missed.

Quite apart from the jobs that high earners naturally create, they now pay about 45% of state income taxes; the exodus is rapidly eroding New York’s entire tax base — leading Albany to hike taxes on everyone else rather than cut the state spending that feeds the political class.

Bottom line: Unless New York starts cutting taxes hard and fast, everyone who doesn’t have a government job is headed for a world of pain.