I didn’t notice until now, but new data from the New York State Department of Taxation of Finance was released in May for the share of New York State income taxes accounted for by each county. And while for older data I rely on the New York State Statistical Yearbook, which wasn’t published every year, it appears that the 41.3% of income taxes paid by full-time state residents that were paid by New York City residents in 2004 is the most since the early 1970s. The data can be found here. New York City residents accounted for $8.9 billion of the $21.6 billion in state income tax receipts paid by full time residents that year, or 41.3% of the total. Moreover, as New Jersey and Connecticut residents account for $2.8 billion of the $3.8 billion in state income taxes paid by non-residents, I doubt the majority of those non-residents worked in Watertown. Getting back to full-time residents, New York City residents accounted for 40.2% of the returns, 40.7% of the income, and 41.3% of the taxes. The city’s share of the population was somewhat higher, since it has a much higher poverty rate than the rest of the state, and thus presumably more people not filing returns.
The key factor is how this relates to state school aid. Under the enacted budget, according to a spreadsheet I have been given, New York City will receive 36.7% of total state education funding, including tax relief aid, this fiscal year. That’s down slightly from 36.8% under Governor Spitzer’s proposal, and up slightly from the 36.5% last year, but nowhere near the 41.3% of state income taxes city residents paid four years earlier. The rest of the state continues to rob from poor children to pay for what my prior posts show to be waste and frills, and it only gets worse, not better. To get $8.9 billion in education funding, city residents will have to pay $10.0 billion in state income taxes ro fund education. We’re not even talking about the taxes paid by commuters from other states here. And who is to say that the city’s share of state income taxes leveled off at 41.3%, given that the city’s economy is so much stronger now than in 2004?
The good news is that the hundreds of thousands of children who were deprived of an education to benefit more powerful interests to benefit more powerful interests here and elsewhere will not be paying those extra taxes. Most will be unable to afford to live in New York City under current real estate market conditions, and will be forced to leave.
As I've said, given what happened in the past to my childrens' generation, I do not want to pay one dime to fund education in the rest of the state. Pay for children here in the city to get an eduation, that I will do. But not for school districts elsewhere to have 10 or 15 times the administrative expenses per child of New York City. I want every cent to come back. We've had 25 years of political objections to the redistribution of resources to the less well off. I never minded helping out those worse off than I am. What I mind is the forcible redistribution of my income to those who are better off but don't believe themselves to be so because they have a greater sense of entitlement.