Tipsheet

Good Luck, New York: Mamdani Plans to Tax Businesses Even If They're Based Outside NYC

Amy Curtis
Amy Curtis  |  October 31, 2025 10:30 AM

We suppose the silver lining of New York electing an avowed Democratic Socialist as mayor is that we'll get to see how disastrous his socialist policies really are, and that'll discourage the rest of the nation from voting for socialism. But we won't pretend that learning that lesson will be hard, especially for the people of New York who didn't vote for Mamdani.

In his latest tax-grab scheme, Zohran Mamdani vows to tax businesses that leave New York and, it seems, any company that merely does business in New York, even if they're headquartered elsewhere.

"So the way that this tax works is it applies to any business doing business here. They could be located in Miami, but if they're doing business in New York, it applies to them," Mamdani said.

This policy proposal is insane. So insane, in fact, we don't even know how to wrap our heads around it. That's hundreds of thousands of businesses, including international ones. 

It doesn't take an economist to see the major flaws in Mamdani's plan, either. For starters, there's nothing stopping businesses from passing along those tax hikes to consumers. In fact, if they wanted to continue doing business in the Big Apple, that's exactly what they'd do.

That will make the cost of living more expensive for middle- and lower-income New Yorkers, as the prices of everyday goods and services skyrocket.

Or — and perhaps businesses should consider this — they could stop doing business in New York altogether. Maybe a local business would step in to fill the void, but maybe not. It would be a wake up call to the residents of NYC if, say, Amazon stopped doing business in Manhattan.

According to New York state law, a business that either does more than $500,000 in annual gross sales or more than 100 transactions in a year must file for a "sales tax Certificate of Authority and collect sales tax."

If Mamdani is referring to taxing corporate profits, it becomes more complex, but it appears that New York law may also permit this if they continue to do business in the state.

But that mom and pop store that shuts its doors to head to Miami? If Mamdani thinks he can still tax it, even if it no longer does business in his city, that's not legal. Then again, when did socialists care about the law?

Huh. That's interesting.

And Mamdani is poised to pull the plug, it seems.