Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis this week poked New York officials over taxes and jobs, saying he’d welcome more residents of the state who want to move south.
“I was looking, you may have seen, the governor of New York complaining that Florida was stealing its residents,” DeSantis, a Republican, said at a news conference this week.
It’s not clear what remarks Gov. Andrew Cuomo made that DeSantis is referring to; it is likely a reference to Cuomo’s push against the $10,000 cap on state and local tax deductions, which Cuomo has blamed on a $2.3 billion revenue shortfall.
Cuomo has said the cap has targeted high tax states like New York, enabling wealthier people to move to states like Florida, negatively affecting New York’s bottomline in the process.
But DeSantis said the departures shouldn’t be blame don Florida.
“You are driving them away and we are simply opening our arms,” he said. “I’ve been able to be very clear that Florida will always remain a low tax state. We will never see an income tax here in Florida. You’re not going hear me or any of the people in Florida push away people who want to bring jobs to our state. I’m not going to demonize people or companies. If AOC (Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) doesn’t want Amazon, they can come to Florida.”
Cuomo has backed efforts to lower tax rates in New York, which have declined during his time in office. But the state’s main revenue generator continues to be the personal income tax. Forty-six percent of the state’s PIT revenue comes from its richest residents.
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