The ton-mileage tax was reduced last year, but it remains uncompetitive. This hurts not only our trucking industry, but also manufacturers, retailers, and other shippers. Lawmakers should reduce this tax another 25 percent of its pre-1998 level. Eliminating the petroleum business tax. It, too, is effectively hidden from consumers because it is embedded in the retail price of such products as gasoline, kerosene and heating oil.
Most states have no such tax.
The Business Council has also scoured the state's entire tax code to identify additional longterm changes. Our goal is not only to eliminate competitive disadvantages in our state tax policy, but to turn that policy into an advantage in New York's competition for jobs. Our tax-reduction agenda is ambitious. But the benefits are clear. Just ask the 300,000 New Yorkers who hold those new private-sector jobs.