Tax Report: New York Ranks Dead Last For Business
While the Cuomo administration has experienced what some would call an historic term in office, one aspect contributing to that description has been the Governor’s insistence that New York is open for business, promoting a new business-friendly atmosphere in the Empire state.
Just a few months ago, the governor had this to say about conducting business in New York:
“The focus of the administration has always been and will continue to be making New York work to help create jobs and grow businesses in every region of the state. In the spirit of entrepreneurial government and through our New York Works initiatives, we have positioned the state as a partner to the private sector to encourage billions of dollars of new investment in nanotechnology and other growth industries.”
It was less than a year ago that Cuomo launched a new marketing initiative called, “New York Open For Business”, which according to a press release, had the following aim:
In recent years, businesses have left the state in record numbers and job losses have devastated local communities, giving New York the image of having one of the worst business climates in the nation. The goal of the “New York Open for Business” initiative is to promote the many assets of investing in New York so the state can regain its reputation as a business-friendly location.
Sad news to report today however, indicating that it doesn’t matter if you open your doors to business, if nobody wants to go inside and buy anything.
Via Capitol Confidential:
This is interesting in light of today’s scheduled events, which include an update on Wall Street’s contribution to the state economy by Comptroller Tom DiNapoli and a NY Works meeting which is part of a Cuomo initiative to rebuild the state’s economy.
The Tax Foundation which, granted, looks askance at taxes, ranks New York dead last in terms of the business tax climate. They cite not just the income taxes but the state’s property taxes, unemployment taxes (overly complex and saddled with surcharges, they say) and overall complexity.
Here’s what they said:
Despite moderate corporate taxes, New York scores at the bottom this year by having the worst individual income tax, the sixth-worst unemployment insurance taxes, and the sixth-worst property taxes. The states in the bottom 10 suffer from the same afflictions: complex, non-neutral taxes with comparatively high rates.
Here is how the rest of the United States stacks up.
This of course, comes on the heels of a summertime report in which the Empire state was ranked dead last in business friendliness, and saw rankings drop in several other categories such as Quality of Life, Economy, Access to Capital, Cost of Living, and Infrastructure & Transportation.
As it stands now, doing business in New York under the Cuomo administration is an historically bad idea.
Despite Cuomo’s Claims, New York Ranks As Least Business-Friendly State in the Nation
While the Cuomo administration has experienced what some would call an historic term in office, one aspect contributing to that description has been the Governor’s insistence that New York is open for business, promoting a new business-friendly atmosphere in the Empire state.
Just a few weeks ago, the governor had this to say about conducting business in New York:
“The focus of the administration has always been and will continue to be making New York work to help create jobs and grow businesses in every region of the state. In the spirit of entrepreneurial government and through our New York Works initiatives, we have positioned the state as a partner to the private sector to encourage billions of dollars of new investment in nanotechnology and other growth industries.”
It was less than a year ago that Cuomo launched a new marketing initiative called, “New York Open For Business”, which according to a press release, had the following aim:
In recent years, businesses have left the state in record numbers and job losses have devastated local communities, giving New York the image of having one of the worst business climates in the nation. The goal of the “New York Open for Business” initiative is to promote the many assets of investing in New York so the state can regain its reputation as a business-friendly location.
Those efforts to regain the state’s reputation as being business-friendly were to involve spending anywhere between $10 and $50 million.
According to a new report from CNBC however, the state has plummeted eight spots overall in a list of America’s Top States For Business 2012. The list ranks all 50 states in categories they use to sell themselves to businesses. New York dropped from the previous year’s rankings in 6 of the 10 categories … including business-friendliness.
New York’s rank in that coveted category? Dead last.
Overall, the Empire state dropped from 26th to the 34th top slot for business. In the individual categories, New York saw a decline in Quality of Life, Economy, Business-Friendliness, Access to Capital, Cost of Living, and Infrastructure & Transportation. The latter category seeing the most dramatic loss, going from 14th in the nation to 39th.
The chart comparing 2012 and 2011 results can be seen below…
Curiously, when looking at the overall list, states with Republican governors dominated as having reputations that are considered business-friendly. According to Human Events:
You’ll also notice similarities between states that rank high on the CNBC list — namely that most of the leadership in those states supports economic policies that mirror the national Republican platform.
Here are the top 20 most-friendly business states according to CNBC:
- Texas
- Utah
- Virginia
- North Carolina
- North Dakota
- Nebraska
- South Dakota
- Colorado
- Georgia
- Wyoming
- Minnesota
- Iowa
- Idaho
- Indiana
- Kansas
- Tennessee
- Wisconsin
- Oregon
- New Hampshire
- Arkansas
Seven out of the 10 states featured in the top 10 have both Republican governors and legislatures. By contrast, within the bottom dwellers, six of 10 have Democrat monopolies on state government.
This, after another report showed that every single one of the 17 states that elected a Republican governor in 2010, saw a drop in their unemployment rates.
By contrast, during that same time frame the unemployment rate in New York has climbed.
Looks like Governor Cuomo has some more work to do to reach those sought after historic levels.
Mental Recession 