TITLE OF BILL
An act to amend the general municipal law, in relation to waiving school taxes by a town, city, or county industrial development agency.
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS
Section 1 creates a new section 889 of the General Municipal Law which dictates that town, city, or county industrial development agencies may not waive any taxes or enter into an agreement for payment in lieu of taxes if such taxes would otherwise be received by the school district.
Section 2 is the effective date.
STATEMENT OF SUPPORT
In FY 2021, New York State public schools lost at least $1.8 billion in revenue to business tax breaks, overwhelmingly from property tax abatements provided by local Industrial Development Agencies (IDAs). It is bad tax policy and irrational to allow IDAs to deprive schools of revenue.
There are hundreds of studies by independent experts showing tax breaks for businesses are a poor investment of public funds. (Twenty of the most important can be downloaded here.) In sharp contrast, public education has been shown to offer a high return on taxpayer investments.
Reinvent Albany strongly supports this legislation. We urge the Legislature to pass this bill.