Paul Kirby reports in the Daily Freeman that Gov. Kathy Hochul may be saying she wants no new taxes besides a cigarette tax increase, Assemblyperson Sarahana Shrestha wants to raise the tax rate on wealthy businesses to generate more than $9 billion. Shrestha, an Ulster County Democrat first elected last fall, is co-sponsoring the legislation with Assemblyperson Anna Kelles, a Democrat from Ithaca. Shrestha, who is former chair and still a member of the Hudson Valley chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, said, “Corporations have no problem jacking up prices and asking consumers to ‘pay for inflation.... Private utilities like Central Hudson have no problem raising rates even as its parent company, Fortis, boasts of record profits. Exxonmobil, Johnson & Johnson, and Amazon continue to line their pockets on the back of working families who are struggling to make ends meet. We need to tax corporations so that we can claim what is rightly ours.” In 2021, New York temporarily raised the corporate income tax rate from 6.5 percent to 7.25 percent for companies with more than $5 million in business income base. “This minor adjustment raised hundreds of millions in revenue each year, but the law expires in 2023,” her office said in a press release. Shrestha wants to go further, with an 8 percent tax on corporations with a business income base of over $2.5 million; a 12 percent tax on corporations with an income base of over $10 million; and a 14 percent tax on companies with an income base of over $20 million. “Even with the temporarily increased tax rate of 7.25 percent,” said Shrestha, “New York is still behind ten other states, including Vermont, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, who tax at higher rates.” Hochul, though, seems uninterested in raising taxes on the wealthy. Read more about this story in the Daily Freeman.