‘Tax Those Rich Mofos’—But Don’t Stop Rebating Billions to Wall Street??
“Tax the Rich” advocates rally outside Governor Kathy Hochul’s Manhattan offices on April 30. Photos/Joe Maniscalco
By Joe Maniscalco
Repealing the New York State Stock Transfer Tax rebate could, according to supporters, generate as much as $40 billion to $75 billion annually for the most urgent needs facing working class New Yorkers today.
That could be more than all the new taxes being advocated by Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the NYC-DSA’s “Tax the Rich” campaign combined. So, why isn’t repealing the Stock Transfer Tax [STT] rebate at least part of the “Tax the Rich” conversation?
“Tax the Rich” organizers and their supporters made it clear this past week at a rally outside Governor Kathy Hochul’s Manhattan offices on Third Avenue that the crisis facing New Yorkers could not be more profound as the Trump administration continues to disinvest in both the city and state, potentially leaving more than a million residents without health care.
“We truly cannot wait to raise revenue at the city and state level,” State Senator Kristen Gonzalez [D-59th District], cosponsor of the Corporate Fair Share Act said on Thursday. “There has never been a moment more serious than this one for us to actually step up and fight for working people.”
Assembly Member Diana Moreno [D-36th District], cosponsor of sister legislation in the lower house, meanwhile said it is time for Albany lawmakers to “meet the moment.”
“I am here representing tired mamas everywhere because we are damned tired,” Assembly Member Moreno said. “We are tired of our tax dollars going to war and genocide instead of education and healthcare.”
All together, the suite of new taxes on the wealthy that the “Tax the Rich” campaign advocates is supposed to generate about $32 billion in new revenues annually.
New York State Senator Kristen Gonzalez.
“Tax the Rich” organizers Work-Bites spoke to on Thursday said the campaign basically supports “all taxes on the rich and ultra rich,” but that repealing the Stock Transfer Tax rebate remains outside its focus.
“We know that taxes are the way to fund a city that we can afford, to fund childcare and healthcare,” a NYC-DSA campaign organizer named Ariel said. “We put a focus on the bills we did this year basically on what we thought was the cleanest and easiest to pass in the short timeframe of this campaign, which is to say in the 2026 budget. But we absolutely support the stock transfer tax and all other taxes on the wealthy and the rich.”
New York State collected the Stock Transfer Tax—a roughly minuscule .01 percent tax on stock trades—from 1905 to 1981 when then Governor Hugh Carey and New York City Mayor Abe Beam conspired to start kicking 100 percent of the revenues raised back to Wall Street investors.
It’s been rebated back to Wall Street ever since, costing New York taxpayers more than $430 billion in lost revenue.
Some call it a “sleeping tax”—but it might be more aptly thought of as a “zombie tax” because the New York State Stock Transfer Tax cannot be classified as truly alive or dead.
James Sanders, Jr. [D-10th District] is the prime sponsor of the State Senate bill seeking to finally repeal the Stock Transfer Tax rebate and keeping the revenue for the people of New York. Phil Steck [D-110th District] is the prime sponsor of the sister bill in the State Assembly.
New York City Council Member Alexa Avilés.
Both efforts remain bottled up in committee, however, with little or no light at the end of the tunnel.
And Steck doesn’t think much of the “Tax the Rich” campaign’s rationale for ignoring the Stock Transfer Tax.
“The history of this lobbying effort indicates that trying ‘to pick off low-hanging fruit’ does not work,” he told Work-Bites this week. “Resources should be invested in the least painful proposal that raises the most money. STT is a .01% tax mainly on non-NY residents. It is in essence a progressive sales tax.”
Last week, Mayor Mamdani teamed up with City Council Speaker Julie Menin to back a scheme altering the state’s Pass Through Entity Tax [PTET]—a kind of tax credit for business owners—in an effort to raise roughly a billion dollars in revenue.
Before that, he and Governor Hochul got together to propose a so-called Pied-á-terre tax—or an annual surcharge on the second homes, condos, and co-ops of wealthy property owners, that the politicos say could generate $500 million annually.
New York City continues to grapple with a multi-billion-dollar budget hole on its ledger, and the state budget due on April 1 is now five weeks late.
Mayor Mamdani could not be reached for comment on this story. But in December, Work-Bites contributor Bob Hennelly did get an opportunity at an outdoor press conference in lower Manhattan to ask the then Mayor-elect about his thoughts on repealing the Stock Transfer Tax rebate.
“My focus on raising additional revenue is on raising the personal income tax on the top one percent of New Yorkers by two percent and increasing the state's top corporate tax to match that of the top tier of New Jersey's corporate tax,” Mamdani said. “I think that these are critically important as we fight to fully fund our city agencies and fund our affordability agenda.
When pressed on whether or not he supports repealing the Stock Transfer Tax Rebate, Mamdani said, "My focus is on the tax policy I've put forward.”
“We want to tax the mother-fucking rich,” Council Member Alexa Avilés said at Thursday’s “Tax the Rich” rally. “Sorry for the little ears, but that’s how we’re feeling because that’s what our people deserve. Our people deserve childcare, education—not by zip code—all children deserve quality education. Our people deserve healthcare—not by zip code, not by birthright—but because you are human, and you deserve the dignity of full healthcare.”
Longtime union organizer Ray Rogers is head of the “End the STT Rebate Campaign.” He calls repealing the New York State Stock Transfer Tax rebate “the most important state legislation to pass in 2026.”
“Passage would significantly meet the funding needs to maintain and expand public services that are on the minds of everyone especially in light of President Trump's reprehensible funding cuts directed at New York,” he recently said.