Hated MTA payroll tax takes its lumps at forum on Staten Island

Staten Island Advance/Jan Somma-HammelFlanked by Assembly members Lou Tobacco and Jane Corwin, East Shore Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis piles ignominy on the payroll tax.

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Sal Sottile said he'd love to expand his security company's 300-person workforce by hiring another 50 employees. But he told lawmakers today he has decided to "wait to see what happens first" with an effort to repeal the MTA Payroll Mobility Tax, which bleeds $9,400 from his profits each quarter.

"My workers on Staten Island drive to work," said the president of Sottile Security International, St. George, of the negligible daily benefits they derive from Metropolitan Transportation Authority services.

James Thomson, an associate with Russo, Scamardella & D'Amato, said the West Brighton law firm also has been "hesitant to hire" because of "soak the employer schemes" like the MTA payroll tax, instituted in 2009, which mandates that businesses, schools and not-for-profits shell out 34 cents on every $100 in payroll.

And Xiomara Ayala of the Staten Island Hispanic Chamber of Commerce charged that the tax is hurting "the butcher, the baker and the bodega owner," adding: "It is absolutely insane to think we can dig our way out by taxing jobs we are already hemorrhaging."

The three were among those who testified at a public forum in Rosebank organized by Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis, who, like her five Albany colleagues from the borough, wants to repeal the tax, which generates $1.4 billion annually for the MTA and accounts for 11 percent of the authority's operating budget.

"New York state is full of taxes and regulations that hurt businesses from growing and expanding, but no penalty has such a direct, negative impact as the MTA payroll tax," said Ms. Malliotakis (R-East Shore/Brooklyn).

Joining her on the panel, billed as an Assembly Republican minority event, were: Assembly members Lou Tobacco (R-South Shore), upstaters Joe Giglio and Jane Corwin -- the latter a ranking member of the Assembly Committee on Corporations, Authorities and Commissions -- and Michael Cusick (D-Mid-Island), who asked to participate.

Among the several dozen Staten Islanders present was a contingent of Catholic school leaders, who pointed to the disparity between public schools, which are reimbursed for the payroll tax, and parochial and independent schools, which are not.

Monsignor Peter Finn, co-regional vicar for Staten Island, called the tax "basically un-American," and said lawmakers need to "stand up and be counted" on the issue, adding, "We'll pray for the MTA."

Sister Anita Gramer, the president of St. John Villa Academy, called the levy a "great unjustice," and Patricia Gabriel, president of the Federation of Catholic Teachers, said the reimbursement inequity "goes beyond stupid" to "discriminatory."

Ditto, said Barbara Bortle-Gainey, president of the Staten Island Federation of Catholic School Parents, adding that it was "unjust and unfair."

Cusick noted there are bills pending in the Assembly to extend reimbursements to parochial and independent schools.

Members of the not-for-profit community also testified, including Randie Vitucci, human resources director at the Jewish Community Center, which spent $28,000 on the MTA payroll tax last year alone.

Fern Zagor, executive vice president of the Staten Island Mental Health Society, said the $30,000 her organization spends annually on the tax "could and should be used to serve Staten Island children and their families."

Meals on Wheels president Joseph Tornello equated the MTA payroll hit his group takes to the amount it costs to feed 10 recipients twice daily for a year.

Joe Valentin, vice president of the Staten Island Taxpayers Association, who has instituted a "boycott the MTA" campaign by urging Islanders to shop locally, called the governors of New York and New Jersey "idiots" and "pathetic" for backing the tax.

Were the tax repealed, said Ms. Malliotakis, the MTA could make up the shortfall by selling off real estate, streamlining bloated executive salaries and renegotiating vendor contracts.

Ms. Corwin said that when the tax was first voted on, it was called the "MTA Bailout Bill."