Murphy sponsors innovative bills to ease NY's tax burden

ALBANY, NY - New Yorkers pride themselves on being number one. There's one honor the state would rather not have - according to the Tax Foundation, a conservative fiscal group, New York has the highest tax burden in the nation.
 
During the 2012 fiscal year, 9.9 percent of all income in the U.S. went toward state and local taxes. In New York the tax burden was 12.7 percent, the most of any state. On the positive side, the tax burden has gone down around the country in recent years, including in New York.
 
As Chairman of the New York State Administrative Regulations Review Commission (ARRC), Senator Terrence Murphy has been leading the effort to change and improve New York's tax and business climate.
 
"Each year, study after study, we hear that New York State has the highest state and local tax burden," Senator Murphy said. "New Yorkers also face some of the toughest regulatory laws in the nation. The Administrative Regulations Commission is working to fix these problems now. New Yorkers have been waiting long enough for relief."
 
To stem the tide of mandates, Senator Murphy has sponsored and passed several pieces of  legislature, including, S.6448, which will require agencies to consider the job impacts of their proposed regulations; S.4328 requiring agencies involve small businesses in negotiated rule making; S.5353, calling for agencies to consider alternate methods of small business regulation and S.4033 and S.4034, allowing the legislature a greater voice in the rule making process by delaying agency rule making until all concerns are satisfactorily negotiated.
 
"One of our top priorities is that we see the state take action to help small businesses," said John Ravitz, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for The Business Council of Westchester. "We congratulate Senator Murphy for being a voice for small business owners."
 
New York's regulatory burden is one of the toughest in the country. In some instances constituents have been forced to comply with the New York State Code of Rules, the New York City Code of Rules and the Code of Federal Regulations - a whopping 370,000 pages of regulations and several thousand rules. "We have to stop this flood of mandates," said Senator Murphy. "They are stifling local governments, forcing schools to drop vital programs and killing small businesses."
 
"New York's onerous regulations continue to threaten the viability of small business," said Michael Durant, New York State Director of the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB). "The cost of workman's compensation and everyday health care are also among the highest in the nation. We applaud Senator Murphy's dedication to addressing these issues and urge legislators on both sides of the aisle to follow suit."
 
Under Senator Murphy's direction, the ARRC has identified several components which would protect New York taxpayers. This includes making the two percent tax cap permanent, a measure which the legislature extended for four more years into 2019. The tax cap has already saved taxpayers billions of dollars, assuring that property taxes will be more affordable.
 
In addition, the 18a energy surcharge was supposed to provide the state with a way to temporarily plug budget gaps during the recent recession. Adding two percent to consumer's utility bills, the surcharge has done more harm than good. Senator Murphy and the members of the ARRC have been pushing to have t his unreasonable tax eliminated by 2017, if not sooner.