Online-shop budget win
ALBANY — In a win for online shoppers, the $153.1 billion state budget deal announced Friday night does not include Gov. Cuomo’s push to require online marketplaces like Etsy and Amazon to collect sales taxes.
The decision to kill Cuomo’s online tax proposal was hailed by tech groups, but ripped by New York retailers.
The proposal would have required online marketplace providers that process a minimum of $100 million in sales a year from New York buyers to collect sales taxes on behalf of third parties from outside New York who use their platforms to sell goods to state residents.
Sales taxes are already collected when a third-party seller is located in New York, but not when the seller is from outside.
Matthew Mincieli, northeast region executive director of TechNet, said had it been enacted, the first-in-the-nation policy would have “set a dangerous precedent across the country.”
“We understand states are looking for new revenue sources, but bad tax policy is not the way to go about it,” he said.
But Retail Council of New York State head Ted Potrikus accused Senate Republicans who led the charge against the tax proposal of having “caved to the clichéd histrionics and whining of out-of-state dot-coms worth billions of dollars” while ignoring “the very real concerns of brick-and-mortar stores struggling in their own districts.”
Mayor de Blasio is not happy that a one-year extension giving him control over the city schools that looked like it would be included in the budget was ultimately left out.
The Senate GOP, which has been warring with the mayor, wants to take it up in June, when the law expires and the mayor’s race heats up.
“The exclusion of mayoral control is nothing more than politics at the expense of students,” said de Blasio spokeswoman Freddi Goldstein.
Citing improvements in test scores, graduation and drop-out rates, Goldstein said that “we cannot afford to go back to the old days.”
NYPD cops are also winners as the budget settles a longstanding dispute between the city and its police union by giving newer officers the same higher disability benefits as veteran officers.
A de Blasio official said that the city addressed the matter with the union in its recent contract deal, but state legislation is needed to formalize it.
After announcing the deal Friday, the Assembly on Saturday passed the two remaining budget bills.
The tension of the past few weeks was evident as a number of Cuomo’s fellow Democrats bashed him during the debate.
At one point, the Dems were abruptly brought behind closed doors where Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) asked them to stop criticizing the governor, sources said.
The Senate is expected to return to Albany Sunday evening to give final passage to a budget that will be at least nine days late — the longest delay of Cuomo’s seven-year tenure.