A Long Island congressman says he plans to start outing New Yorkers who financial support a Trump-era tax overhaul that has Wall Street fleeing to the Sunshine State.
Rep. Tom Suozzi, a Nassau County Democrat, on Monday announced plans to reintroduce legislation to repeal a 2017 tax change that penalizes citizens of high-tax states by capping at $10,000 the amount of state and local taxes bills they can deduct from their tax bill.
In an effort to get the legislation passed, the Long Island Democrat plans to compile a list New Yorkers and businesses who have contributed at least $1,000 to members of Congress who have opposed repealing the so-called SALT cap.
Suozzi, who was reelected by the skin of his teeth in November, plans to publish the list by April 2021 to unite New Yorkers in shaming the turncoats, he said in a Zoom conference call. He said he was inspired to take this hardline tact after reading that even Goldman Sachs is toying with the idea of abandoning the Empire State for a friendlier tax code.
“I am calling on New Yorkers to stop funding those politicians killing our state, killing our city and killing New York.” Suozzi said. “We have to get organized and start holding these elected officials who are consciously undermining our state to account.”
“This is a real battle and we’ve got to treat it like a real battle,” he said. “And we need to hold the people who are undermining our state accountable for it.”
Supporters of the overhaul argue that the cap hurts even middleclass New Yorkers subjected to sky-high state and NYC taxes.
The cap, which Gov. Andrew Cuomo has likened to “economic civil war” between red states and blue states, has also prompted many wealthy Gothamites and the financial firms that pay them to leave the Big Apple.
In October, billionaire corporate cage rattler Paul Singer announced he was relocating his $41 billion hedge fund Elliott Management from Midtown Manhattan to Palm Beach, an almost identical move made by hedgie kingpin Carl Icahn in 2019.
Suozzi on Monday went out of his way to cite a Bloomberg report that said Goldman Sachs is considering relocating its asset management business to South Florida in the latest sign that New York is losing its edge as the financial capital of the world.
“Goldman Sachs is thinking about leaving New York! That’s a red alert to all of us,” he warned.
In a statement, a Goldman spokesperson denied any concrete plans to leave the Big Apple.
“As announced at our investor day in January, we are executing on the strategy of locating more jobs in high-value locations throughout the US, but we have no specific plans to announce at this time.”
Suozzi’s bid to repeal the SALT cap is expected to run into trouble with the more progressive members of his party as 52 percent of the benefit from repealing the cap would flow to households earning at least $1 million a year, according to the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation.
But Suozzi seems undaunted in his crusade.
“No New Yorker should contribute to any politician who opposes this legislation,” he said Monday. “They are funding our demise.”