Budget of New York State

NY Budget

NYS Budget

The battle over the budget has reached new heights as the deadline looms nearer. Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York's legislative leaders negotiated over property tax relief, charter schools and prekindergarten funding Monday with a budget deadline looming in a week; leaders emerging from closed-door talks at the Capitol said they continued to make progress to get a deal by April 1 (AP, 2014). Though many of the parties have claimed that the negotiations are making progress, the details of this so called progress were not to be released to the public until just before the deal emerged.

The details of the deal that have just recently emerged involve Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state leaders agreeing on a 2014-15 budget that lessens taxes on manufacturers and creates a property tax credit for homeowners (Weaver, 2014). Reporters announced that the one and a half billion dollar property tax relief program included in the budget was aimed to incentivize local governments to share services and reduce their financial burden on the taxpayer. This will undoubtedly reduce the amount of revenues that local governments receive and will put pressure on local public services. However, if the homeowners use this savings as disposable income to spend in their local communities, then this could also have a positive economic effect. Yet the fates of the economic implications are certainly debatable at this point.

Another aspect to the deal is that the estate tax will gradually be raised. The final version of the 2014-15 New York state budget includes raises the threshold for triggering estate taxes, something conservatives, farmers and others have lobbied for years; the new legislation sets new exemption amounts. If a person dies between (Weaver, NY Budget: Estate tax change, 2014):

April 1 and March 31, 2015, an estate of $2,062,500 is exempt.

April 1, 2015 and March 31, 2016, an estate of $3,125,000 is exempt.

April 1, 2016 and March 31, 2017, an estate of $4,187,500 is exempt.

April 1, 2017 and Dec. 31, 2019, an estate of $5,250,000.

Raising the estate tax rates will help the families of the most advantaged members of the population.