Tax Packages In NYC To Help Save MTA, Lawmaker Says

NEW YORK CITY — A $16 billion budget hole at MTA could be partly filled one $3 package surcharge per delivery in New York City.

Brooklyn Assembly Member Robert Carroll floated the package tax in a New York Daily News op-ed co-penned with transit union leader John Samuelsen.

“There is one option that would raise more than $1 billion a year for the city’s subway and bus system — while also supporting small businesses and protecting the environment: a $3 surcharge on packages ordered online for delivery in New York City, excluding those with medicine or food,” they wrote.

The proposal is tied with a bill introduced last year by Carroll.

Even back then, MTA faced fiscal hardships — and the deficit has only grown as ridership cratered amid the coronavirus crisis.

MTA board members have spent months warning of a doomsday scenario — 40 percent service cuts, massive layoffs and more — if the federal government doesn’t come through with $12 billion in aid.

Carroll and Samuelsen wrote a tax packages ordered online and delivered in New York City — of which there are 1.8 million a day — could be part of a solution.

It’d also have the side effect of reducing the number of delivery trucks and vans on city streets, encouraging large companies like Amazon to find efficient, environmentally-friendly ways to ship packages and incentivize some New Yorkers to shop local instead.

“They might be reminded how local mom-and-pop stores, and bigger retailers like Bloomingdales and Macy’s, are part of what makes a city dynamic, diverse and interesting,” the op-ed states. “These businesses also employ our neighbors.”

But not all New Yorkers found the proposal to be a win for the little guy.

“Or you could just tax the rich?” tweeted one Twitter user under a NBC4 story about the proposal.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also responded, arguing it’d be a tax on the poor and working class.

“Maybe instead of taxing people who need baby formula and essential goods, we tax those who have profited billions from a global pandemic?” she tweeted.

Carroll responded that the tax wouldn’t apply to food and other essential items. He also tweeted that he drafted a bill to tax Amazon and co-sponsored bills to tax billionaires, millionaires, Pied-à-Terres and stock transfers.

“I support taxing the rich but I also support taxing things like gasoline bc they have societal costs,” he tweeted. “We can & should tax both. The surcharge will make our air cleaner, streets safer & help thousands of small biz.”