Newsday Op-Ed Discusses NY's State Business Tax Climate Index Rank

"McMahon: NY's still too business-unfriendly"

By E.J. McMahon

Reciting a litany of economic challenges facing New York soon after he took office as governor a year ago, Andrew M. Cuomo declared: "We have the worst business tax climate in the nation, period."

In the Tax Foundation's latest top-to-bottom ranking of 50 state business tax climates, New York comes in at No. 49. So the governor can now turn that period into a comma. We have the worst business tax climate in the nation, except for New Jersey.

Nothing to boast about there, obviously. It remains to be seen whether Cuomo will produce the kind of climate change our economy needs.

He got off to a strong enough start. During his first six months in office, Cuomo reined in spending to close a $10 billion budget gap without tax hikes, and pushed through a cap on local property-tax growth.

Unfortunately, he ended 2011 by muddying the state's tax policy waters. In December, Cuomo and the State Legislature agreed to raise a net $1.5 billion by temporarily extending sharply higher rates for individuals earning $1 million and couples earning $2 million, offset by small temporary rate cuts for the middle class and a partial rollback of the mass transit payroll tax in the metropolitan region.

Cuomo's grade on tax policy thus remains an incomplete, pending promised "revenue-neutral" tax reforms before the latest changes expire in 2014. (In New Jersey, meanwhile, Gov. Chris Christie is seeking an income tax cut.)

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