State lawmakers and Gov. Kathy Hochul are finalizing a plan to ding New Yorkers’ pocketbooks to help fund the MTA’s record-breaking capital plan, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) confirmed Tuesday — although he refused to offer any details.
“We just probably all have to initial the proposal at this point,” Heastie said of his three-way talks between himself, Hochul and state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart Cousins (D-Westchester).
Heastie, asked by The Post why he can’t share details with New Yorkers about how they’re going to be taxed, retreated into excuses about looping in rank-and-file members of the assembly before he goes public with Hochul’s new tax.
“I’ve not come back to them with a final plan yet, so I really need to inform them first,” Heastie said.
In the fall, the MTA sent Albany a massive $68 billion five-year capital plan that failed to account for $33 billion in needed revenue to fund the improvements, which are now expected to be included as part of a deal over the state budget.
Since then, Hochul has been musing hiking the payroll mobility tax, which targets employers and some self-employed people doing business in areas of New York, to fund the program.
Lawmakers told The Post they were briefed last week on a working proposal on Hochul restructuring the mobility tax.
Under the proposal, taxes would be increased for larger businesses with payrolls upwards of $10 million and decreased or possibly eliminated for businesses with the smallest payrolls, sources said.
Sources said the adjustments to the tax would raise approximately $2 billion, which would then be bonded out to come up with the full $33 billion for the plan.
