As a small business owner in Westchester, the recent articles and letters concerning the Metropolitan Transportation Authority payroll tax are missing the point. The MTA tax is a nuisance to be sure, since it has quarterly and end-of-year filing requirements that are different from the state tax and all other filing/taxing requirements. However, at 0.34 percent of payroll, it really doesn’t affect hiring decisions. Instead of focusing on this tax, please focus on the real job killers in New York, which are the New York unemployment tax (currently at over 10 percent of payroll), and the Workers Compensation Insurance (also at over 10 percent of payroll). New York has the dubious honor of having among the highest costs (for employers) for these two taxes, along with the lowest pay-outs (for workers).
Steve Miller
Pleasantville
