Riverdale residents weigh in as “Tax the Rich” debate intensifies

In the northwest Bronx, calls for Gov. Kathy Hochul to raise taxes on New York’s wealthiest residents and corporations echoed across the Lehman College campus March 29, where Sen. Bernie Sanders urged the governor to take action amid New York City’s widening projected budget gap.

The “Tax the Rich” rally took place just days before Hochul’s April 1 deadline to finalize the fiscal year 2027 state budget, as negotiations in Albany over how to address the city’s estimated $5.4 million budget deficit. Progressive lawmakers and advocates pushed for revenue measures backed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani — namely, raising income tax on those earning over $1 million annually and increasing corporate taxes on large, highly profitable companies.

“Mayor Mamdani has proposed a surcharge of two percentage points on New York City millionaires,” Sanders said at the rally. “That is .7 percent of total city taxes — fewer than 1 percent — which would generate approximately $3 million annually. So let us be clear on the mayor’s proposal, 99.3% of people in New York City would not nickel more in taxes.”

Hochul has resisted raising income taxes on the wealthy, and instead proposed allocating about $1.5 billion in state aid to help address New York City’s projected budget deficit.

“I would ask Governor Hochul, ‘Listen to where the people are at,’” Sanders said, looking out at the crowd.

Although Mamdani floated property tax increases as a potential fallback to close that gap — a move that requires City Council approval — he has said he wants to avoid doing so, instead urging the state to raise income taxes on New Yorkers earning over $1 million and large corporations.

Lois Harr, Riverdale resident and member of Northwest Bronx Indivisible, was in the crowd at the rally, where organizers estimated more than 2,000 people were in attendance.

“I pay my taxes, I’m not a billionaire,” she said.  “I’m retired now, and I’m going to pay tax on that. It’s a noble thing to contribute to the common good we all benefit from, all kinds of things like schools, the fire department, the police department, parks.”

Yet in greater Riverdale, even among neighbors sympathetic to the message, the question of how to tax the wealthy revealed a more layered set of views.

Longtime resident Shelley Simpson said the issue is not about targeting individuals, but rather fixing structural inequities embedded in the existing system, pointing to factors like tax codes — deductions, credits, exemptions —  that can significantly reduce what individuals and corporations ultimately pay.

“Every one of us takes advantage of every deduction we can get to pay the least amount of taxes,” Simpson said. “Maybe [the solution] is raising some taxes, but maybe it’s getting rid of some loopholes, maybe getting rid of some exemptions. Making it more fair than it is.”

Others in Riverdale are more skeptical, like Frank Scalesi, who echoed concerns previously raised by Gov. Hochul — that higher taxes could drive wealthy residents out of the state.

“It’s so easy to say tax the rich,” Scalesi said. “You can’t demonize the rich. You’re going to push those people out, and it hurts the whole city. They’re rich enough that they can move out, and then we’re stuck here. They can pick up and go easier than we can.”

Research suggests the relationship between taxes and migration may be less direct than many assume.

A 2023 report by the nonprofit Fiscal Policy Institute — an independent, nonpartisan think tank —  found that New York’s high earners, defined as those making more than $815,000 annually, typically leave at far lower rates than working- and middle-class residents, and that previous income tax increases in 2017 and 2021 did not significantly alter their migration patterns.

Between 2020 and 2022, the study showed, about 2,400 millionaire households left New York while roughly 17,500 new millionaire households moved in during the same period — a net increase researchers linked in part to “economic growth and rising incomes.”

Nonprofit, nonpartisan groups such as the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities also found little evidence that higher taxes drive large numbers of wealthy residents to leave. Their analyses show migration among high earners is shaped more by job opportunities, family ties and quality of life than by tax rates.

Still, for residents like Scalesi, there remains an underlying concern that even the possibility of people leaving could weaken the city’s tax base. With the state budget still up in the air, that concern remains a central part of the debate as officials weigh whether higher taxes would bring in new revenue or risk losing it.