NYC’s Small-Biz $queeze

When even members of the New York City Council are seeking to lower, and maybe end, a tax, you can be sure something terrible’s wrong with it. And, indeed, the council has been trying for months to limit the crippling and outdated commercial-rent levy. Unfortunately, council members have run into firm opposition from Mayor de Blasio.

Now Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, too, is pushing a bill to exempt supermarkets from the 3.9 percent tax on commercial rents in southern Manhattan. Monday, she made her case at City Hall.

The tax “has outlived its purpose, and now it’s crushing our local businesses,” said Brewer. We’ve often disagreed with her, but she’s dead right this time.

First enacted in 1963 to finance growing welfare benefits, the tax has since been repealed everywhere in the city except for businesses between 96th and Chambers streets that pay at least $250,000 in rent.

Yet facing soaring rents and growing competition online and from major chains, many small businesses have had to close up shop, at least partly because of the tax. (The Post’s Steve Cuozzo lays it all out on the opposite page.)

Remember, it’s not a tax on profits: Rent is a basic expense of doing business, and to pay a tax on top of that is especially tough for struggling shops.

In many neighborhoods, local supermarkets provide the only sources of fresh, nutritious food and operate on a tight profit margin. The tax is crushing them, as it did one Little Italy market that had to shut after 25 years because the owner could no longer afford to pay $30,000 in rent tax.

Indeed, the 132 supermarkets in the tax corridor alone pay a combined $5 million a year. So when businesses shut down, it’s not only goods and services that are lost, but also hefty tax revenue for the city. Not to mention jobs.

By all rights, the commercial-rent tax should have been fully repealed long ago. But efforts remain stalled in the council, especially since de Blasio took office.

Another council bill would keep the tax but raise the threshold to $500,000 in annual rent before it kicks in. But the mayor opposes that one, too, despite overwhelming council support.

De Blasio took office vowing relief for New York’s small businesses. He can provide it by letting the council kill this tax.