Great News: Paterson's Secret Tax on 'The Rich'

Naturally when there are no more "rich people" left to tax, the rest of the schlubs in New York will be picking up the tab. For a guy whose poll numbers are in the toilet, it's as if he has a secret ambition to be booted from office as soon as possible.

GOV. PATERSON and legislative Democrats have secretly agreed on an $8 billion, two-year tax hike on individuals making more than $500,000 a year that will "sunset" around the time he plans to run for election in 2010, legislative sources told The Post.

Also under intense discussion yesterday as lawmakers rushed to complete a budget by April 1 is a proposal to raise the state's 4 percent sales tax to 4.5 percent the total of which would jump to close to 10 percent in parts of the state with the addition of local sales taxes.

Of course you don't have to be rich to pay the sales tax. Everyone is fortunate enough to share in that.

The sales-tax hike, too, would sunset at the end of next year or in early 2011, legislative Democrats said.

While Paterson has repeatedly claimed he was against a "millionaires' tax" on the very wealthy and hasn't backed a sales-tax hike, the sources said he was privately backing both.

The current top tax rate is 6.85 percent for all incomes over $25,000 a year. Sources could not say yesterday what the rate would rise to for incomes over $500,000.
"Paterson has told everyone he really wants the taxes, but he wants it to appear to the public that he's against them," a senior legislative official said.

Good luck with that.