Thousands of Hoboken residents who hop on the PATH, ferries, busses and taxis every day will be subject to a decision by New York City’s lawmakers to possibly reinstate the highly controversial Commuter Tax for out-of-city residents.
If Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plan is successful, New Jersey’s more than 200,000 commuters will be responsible for helping to close a $6 billion New York City budget defect. Bloomberg says that commuters should shoulder the cost for services they receive, but Hoboken commuters said they are already burdened with a higher NYC sales tax and have to pay for the rising cost of transportation to and from their workplace.
“The timing is completely and utterly wrong,” said Hoboken resident Mark Farrell last week. Every day, Farrell takes the ferry to his job as a production manager and on-air personality at a radio station based in downtown Manhattan. He said that he understands the basis of the tax, but the timing is off. “We’re at a point where we need to attract businesses and jobs [to New York City],” he said, “not push them away. What they’re doing is basically cutting the umbilical cord from New Jersey to New York.”
He said that it would be the mid-range earners who would struggle. “For those people that are living check to check, it makes a big difference,” he said.
Bloomberg’s current proposal is for more than just a little spare change. When the tax was repealed by the New York state legislature in 1999, a Hoboken family making $100,000 would have $450 per year deducted in commuter taxes. Bloomberg’s plan would raise the rate by more than five times that amount, and the same family would now have to about $2,400 a year.
New York Gov. George Pataki and State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno have both publicly opposed the tax plan, which makes it unlikely that it will be adopted at such a high rate. The New York legislature would have to vote on any proposed commuter tax.
Many officials are speculating that Bloomberg’s current proposal is being used as negotiating ploy so that a smaller tax can be adopted in the future.
Hoboken resident Daniel DeCavaignac, vice president of technical project management for a major national bank, said that part of the problem is that a solution with New Jersey isn’t being broached cooperatively.
“This is a one-way tax,” he said from his Manhattan office Monday. “New Yorkers don’t pay extra taxes when they work in New Jersey. New York is already a hard enough place to get to and work.”
He added that if the tax were implemented, he would ask his employer for a raise to cover the costs or would ask his employer to transfer him to New Jersey.
“It would be like getting a 10 percent raise,” DeCavaignac said.
Another point he made was that New Jersey voters don’t vote in New York, which means that they have little say in the process. This is good for New York politicians because they can raise revenue without upsetting their constituents. But it can work against them by creating political animosity with their closest neighbors.
Mayor David Roberts said Tuesday that the policy has not been fully thought out.
“My position is that it’s grossly unfair to commuters and to Hoboken,” said Roberts. “We want to be able to work with our neighboring city, not against them. This is not good public policy.”
He also added that the plan could drive out businesses from Manhattan. “I think as we rebuild lower Manhattan there shouldn’t be a policy that encourages businesses to leave and look elsewhere,” he said.
City Councilman Tony Soares, who has a full-time job in the advertising industry and commutes to New York every day, said, “It would hurt Hoboken drastically. It would require a lot of people to look for new jobs.”
New Jersey Democratic Senate President Richard Codey (D-West Orange) released a statement Nov. 18 which threatened a retaliatory tax if the NYC commuter tax was to advance.
“If New York City tries to tax our commuters, we’ll send a retaliatory tax across the Hudson in record time,” said Codey. “If we are faced with a commuter tax, our reaction has to be ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ ”
To see the reactions from residents in other North Hudson towns, go to www.weehawkenreporter.com.