Bloomberg: Don't Raise Taxes On Rich New Yorkers

One subject that has been largely overlooked during the debate over the federal budget, which would raise taxes on the wealthy, is this: They already shoulder a large tax burden.

New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg did the math recently as a way of warning New York's State Assembly against raising taxes on rich New Yorkers.

The result, said Mayor Mike: A significant drop in city revenue if the wealthy flee to more tax-friendly locations.

The New York State Assembly is considering raising taxes on households earning between $250,000 and $1 million.

Bloomberg said it's "easy to rile against the rich" during one of his recent weekly radio addresses, according to the New York Post. Then he laid out the numbers for listeners:

"One percent of the households that file in this city pay something like 50 percent of the taxes," said Bloomberg, a billionaire Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-independent. "In the city, that's something like 40,000 people."

Bloomberg said that if even a "handful" leave the city to flee the high taxes, the city would barely break even.

"The question is what's fair. If 1 percent are paying 50 percent of the taxes, you want to make it even more? Anybody below that 1 percent, no taxes?"

-- Frank Ahrens
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