A holiday-delayed Tax Day is here and with it no refund for 3.9 million New Yorkers who had the double misfortune to lose their jobs during the 2020 COVID shutdown and then had to pay Albany taxes on their unemployment benefits. The state wrongly assessed $1.4 billion in taxes from these people (averaging $365) and has refused to give it back. Blame Gov. Hochul, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie. The rank and file members of the Legislature are all for it, but the bosses said no as they spent billions on just about everything else.
Congress, wisely and compassionately, excluded $10,200 in jobless assistance from taxation for that unique COVID year and New York needed to enact similar legislation. Such a bill, from state Sen. Simcha Felder, has 56 of 63 senators signed on. Even Hochul’s recently departed lieutenant governor was a sponsor. Peter Abbate is leading the way in the Assembly. But still the bosses said no. We asked Hochul earlier this year and she said that she wouldn’t discuss legislation in public. Clearly, she didn’t discuss it in private either.
Hochul’s primary rivals Jumaane Williams and Tom Suozzi back the rebate, as does her ally Attorney General Tish James. Among the Republicans, Harry Wilson, Rob Astorino and Andrew Giuliani are gung ho, while Lee Zeldin won’t say a peep. Before he was a congressman, Zeldin was a state senator and every single GOP senator supports the rebate. Why not Zeldin?
There’s money for this. Comptroller Tom DiNapoli calculates that for the fiscal year just ended, tax collections were $13.6 billion higher than predicted a year ago and there’s billions in COVID aid from Congress. This tax especially hits dependents, as unemployment is unearned income and only $1,100 is excluded from taxation.
We suspect the reason for the brush off from Hochul is that these 3.9 million New Yorkers didn’t have a visible lobbying presence in the halls of the Capitol with noisy demonstrations. But there’s still time before June to enact the rebate.