Calls to Restore Wall Street Tax Send NY Labor Unions Running
Advocates pushing to repeal New York’s Stock Transfer Tax rebate protest outside the New York Stock Exchange last month. Photo/Steve Wishnia
By Steve Wishnia
A bill to revive New York’s tax on stock transfers, which has been rebated since 1981, could bring the state some $13 billion a year in revenue—but it is drawing almost zero support from labor unions.
Of 12 unions contacted by Work-Bites—representing workers in the public sector and those in areas that receive public funds, such as health care and construction—only one, United University Professions, said it is actively lobbying for the legislation.
“We have not gotten a lot of traction with unions, which is disappointing,” UUP President Fred Kowal told Work-Bites.
The stock-transfer tax ranges from 1.25 cents each on shares sold for under $5 to 5 cents on shares sold for $20 or more, up to a maximum of $350 a day per transaction. The bill would earmark 35% of revenues for transportation, from mass transit to roads and bridges; 25% for environmental projects, in energy, farming, and water; and 15% for public education at all levels. The rest would go to health care, aid to local governments, and affordable housing—5% to the New York City Housing Authority, and 5% to the state housing agency, for upstate and Long Island.
New York State collected the stock transfer tax on Wall Street for 75 years prior to the Reagan-era. It’s credited, as Michael Kink, executive director of the Strong Economy for All Coalition points out, for helping to build “all the good things” the state established mid-century including the State University of New York [SUNY], City University of New York [CUNY], and Mitchell-Lama housing.
The reasons given to oppose the bill “really don’t bear up,” Kowal says. “It’s not a big burden.” And it would be a great generator of revenue that’s “going to be very badly needed.”
More than 100 UUP members urged state legislators to approve the bill during advocacy days in Albany in February, a union spokesperson says, and it is likely they will continue to push lawmakers during the rest of the session.
Other unions, other priorities
Of the other unions contacted, two said they supported reviving the stock-transfer tax but had more pressing legislative priorities this year. Four are advocating other measures to raise taxes on the rich. One said it opposed the bill, one declined to comment, and the rest did not respond to multiple phone and email messages.
“1199SEIU supports the stock-tax bill,” a spokesperson said, “but as health-care workers, we are focused right now on stopping the proposed Medicaid cuts coming from Washington, which would take health care away from millions of people to fund billionaire tax cuts.” It calls that a “code blue” emergency. Some 1199 members are on Medicaid, and cuts would also hit hospitals and nursing homes where they work.
The Professional Staff Congress, which represents faculty and staff at the City University system, has supported the stock-transfer tax in the past, a spokesperson said, but this year, “we're focusing our revenue fight with the Share Our Wealth campaign.”
Share Our Wealth is a package of two bills. One would raise state income taxes on people making more than $5 million a year, and the other would raise the corporate tax for businesses with more than $5 million in taxable income from 7.25% to 9%. Supporters estimate that they would bring in almost $3 billion a year.
This package is getting the bulk of labor support. It’s been endorsed by the state AFL-CIO, Communications Workers of America District One, the New York State Nurses Association, the Public Employees Federation (PEF), and SEIU.
The United Federation of Teachers, meanwhile, is supporting a five-bill package called Invest in Our New York. Those measures include raising tax rates on the wealthy to as high as 24% on income over $20 million; increasing the corporate tax by slightly less than the Share Our Wealth bill would; setting the tax on long-term capital gains to equal the income tax for the same bracket; creating a “wealth tax” on assets over $1 billion; and lowering the threshold for the estate tax.
“We thought these would bring in the most revenue and stood the best chance of passage,” UFT spokesperson Alison Gendar said in an email.
The Civil Service Employees Association, however, said it has not supported the stock transfer tax. Its concern was that “we don’t know the long-term impact it could have on the financial markets of New York.”
The New York State United Teachers declined to comment. The Building & Construction Trades Council of Greater New York, District Council 37, and Transport Workers Union Local 100 did not respond.
Stasis or state of emergency?
The lack of union support for restoring the stock tax seriously vexes Ray Rogers, head of the End Stock Transfer Tax Rebate Campaign.
“Any organization, especially those representing public-sector workers, who do not aggressively support the passage of this bill are doing their members and the general public a grave disservice,” he says. “This is truly a battle of greed vs. need that we must win to better the lives of all New Yorkers.”
Restoring the “minuscule” tax “is not hurting anyone but the stock speculators,” he adds, and the revenue is earmarked for “critical public services and infrastructure needs.” For example, $650 million could get a lot of repairs done in the city’s public housing.
With the state legislative session scheduled to end June 12, however, none of these proposals—the stock-transfer tax, the two Share Our Wealth measures, and the five Invest in Our New York bills—have yet received a committee hearing. The Share Our Wealth language was included in both the Senate and the Assembly’s one-house budgets, but not in the final state budget passed May 8.
That might change if the federal budget takes a bone saw to aid to states, particularly for education, health care, and infrastructure projects.
The stock-transfer tax bill’s two sponsors, state Senator James Sanders Jr. (D-Queens) and Assemblymember Phil Steck (D-Albany), both told Work-Bites at a rally last month that they didn’t expect it to pass this year—unless there is what Steck called “a calamitous Trump budget.”
“We’re waiting to see which way it goes,” the PEF spokesperson said.
-additional reporting by Joe Maniscalco