March 13, 2020.

An op-ed by Abigail Disney urges New York toward tax reform by ensuring everyone pays their fair share to support our state.  The opinion piece supports “a letter asking Gov. Andrew Cuomo and our state Legislature to raise the tax rates for very wealthy New Yorkers. I and my co-signers support an ultra-millionaires tax that asks those making $5 million, $10 million and $100 million a year to pay a little more in income taxes. We also support a tax on wealth starting at $1 billion, and higher taxes on second, third or fourth homes valued at over $5 million.”

You may have heard the argument that raising millionaire’s taxes could lead to a mass exodus, seriously eroding the tax base. As the Fiscal Policy Institute points out, over the past 30 years the wealthiest 5 percent of New Yorkers have seen our incomes increase by 368 percent while the bottom 50 percent have actually seen their income decline by 15 percent. And, since a small millionaires surcharge tax was first levied in 2009, the number of millionaires has actually grown substantially, as has our combined income.