‘Axe the tax’: Adams-backed state proposal could free over 400,000 low-income New Yorkers from paying city income taxes

Hundreds of thousands of very low-income New Yorkers could be relieved from paying personal income taxes under new legislation that state lawmakers will introduce and which Mayor Eric Adams supports.

The proposal, dubbed “Axe the Tax for the Working Class,” would abolish personal income taxes for individuals with at least one dependent making at or below 150% of the federal poverty level. The city estimates that over 429,000 city tax filers — mostly families with children — would qualify for the relief.

But the tax benefit will only come if the bill passes both chambers of the state legislature and is signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul. State Sen. Leroy Comrie (D-Queens) and Assembly Member Rodneyse Bichotte-Hermelyn (D-Brooklyn) — two of the mayor’s closest allies in Albany — are the bill’s primary sponsors, and will introduce it during the new state legislative session, which begins in January.

Adams and the two sponsors announced the legislation at a Wednesday press conference at the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council (HTC) headquarters in Manhattan, surrounded by union workers.

“We are going to rip up the tax bill and make sure that they can put the money back into their pocket,” Adams said. “This is going to go to retail workers and single mothers. Because here in New York, we raise families and lower taxes.”

Bichotte-Hermelyn said the bill would have helped people like her mother, who raised herself and her three siblings.

“My mother was raising four kids on her own, it was very very difficult,” Bichotte-Hermelyn said. “Imagine if she just had a little bit more, just a little bit more. That little bit more would have pushed us a lot further.”

While there the two lawmakers are committed to introducing the legislation, it is still in the “concept stage,” according to mayoral spokesperson Kayla Mamelak.

The tax relief will go to families with one adult and one child earning up to $31,503 annually; one adult and two children earning up to $36,824 annually, two adults and one child earning up to $36,789 annually; and two adults and two children earning up to $46,350 annually.

The bill would also lower and eventually phase out income taxes for city residents making just above (within $5,000 of) 150% of the federal poverty level. The city says the legislation would reduce the income taxes of an estimated 152,500 city residents.

The measure could save the 582,000 low-income New Yorkers who would qualify for the tax break a collective $63 million.

First Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer said the proposal will help spare New Yorkers from having to make dire choices between “making rent or fearing eviction, between buying food or going hungry, between paying for prescriptions or risking their health.”

“These are the choices that we want to make sure New Yorkers don’t make, and that’s why it’s so critical,” Torres-Springer said.