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NYC Mayor Announces $1 Billion In Cuts, Job Losses On Friday - wcbstv.com
Mayor Michael Bloomberg officially announced Friday the city's $4 billion budget gap and unveiled a new budget filled with painful cutbacks that will impact every New Yorker....
For now, Bloomberg is proposing $894 million in new sales taxes, including:
-Increasing the sales tax by one quarter of one percent from 8.375 percent to 8.625 percent
-Repealing the sales tax exemption on clothing purchases under $110
-And new taxes on lots of things that are now tax-free, like music downloads.
That's right – download a song or movie on your iPod and you pay new sales taxes. Also slated for new sales taxes are movies, sporting events, satellite radio, cable TV, concerts, bowling alleys, racetracks, golf courses, and – if you're looking to be taken for a ride to those events – taxis, limousines, and pedicabs will cost you more too.
"I would love to not have any sales tax, it's not good for business here," he said.
That's the mayor's plan for now, except even he admits it might not be his plan in the end. If the Legislature decides to put a surcharge on the personal income tax for taxpayers who make over $500,000, he told CBS 2's Marcia Kramer he might piggyback on that.
"We'd have to find a billion dollars more revenue," he said.
The budget also calls for eliminating 23,000 jobs through layoffs and attrition. That includes 15,000 teachers, but that might be a red herring. There seems to be money in the federal stimulus package to save most of the jobs....
The new/increased taxes on iPod downloads, satellite/cabe tv, sports events, cinemas, concerts, certain categories of clothing (excluding children's shoes, of course!), etc. sound to me like something the Brians should consider (rather than elderly people's Medical Cards and Bus Passes!!).
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Originally Posted by Utopian Hermit Monk
