Start-up NY: 100% Tax-Free for 10 Years?

by jbarrec • 13 years ago

131 107 13 years ago

(Because it's not on the front page)"START-UP NY is a groundbreaking new initiative from Governor Andrew M. Cuomo that will provide major incentives for businesses to relocate, start up or significantly expand in New York State through affiliations with public and private universities, colleges and community colleges. Businesses will have the opportunity to operate state and local tax-free on or near academic campuses, and their employees will pay no state or local personal income taxes. In addition, businesses may qualify for additional incentives."

Wow. As a former resident of NYS, this is incredible. Income tax in the state is really high and this seems like a good way to spark development.

mathattack• 13 years ago

Wow! Does this in include NYC?

matthewbadeau2• 13 years ago

It looks like it does so long as you pair up with a CUNY school. It looks like the New York City region goes up to Westchester county

ChrisNorstrom• 13 years ago

Clever, both financially and psychologically. If you plan on leaving after 10 years consider this, after a decade you will have built your entire logistics, business partnerships, network, staff, and support system in NYC. Moving out will be very difficult. You won't want to.

Aco-• 13 years ago

and this is bad, why?

aragot• 13 years ago

Chris Norstrom isn't experssing an opinion, he's analyzing the talent of NY in attracting startups and making sure they stay there.

HN isn't a tribune for opinions but a tribune for learning and deconstructing how the (tech) world evolves. Unfortunately on the internet, everyone thinks everyone is interested in sharing layman opinions or political POVs, but we already have Facebook for that.

anonymouscowar1• 13 years ago

Then you can just create a new, younger start-up and acquire the older one. Taxes fixed at 0.

Is NY trying to race to the bottom?

yapcguy• 13 years ago

After 10 years, it's somebody else's problem - you should be on a beach sipping a cool drink!

jusben13693• 13 years ago

I suspect most people understand the hook and motive of NY for doing this.

PaulHoule• 13 years ago

As a New Yorker, I think this sucks.

We already pay high taxes and if somebody gets a tax break that means all the rest of us will pay even more.

raheemm• 13 years ago

Better the tax breaks go to startups and new businesses than to bureaucracies and large corps.

greenyoda3• 13 years ago

There currently seems to be no shortage of startups in NYC, even without these tax breaks. And if a company only comes to NY because of the tax breaks, they might leave when the tax breaks expire.

PKop2• 13 years ago

What about your average, everyday, not new, small business? If low taxes are good all of the sudden, why not lower them for everybody?

jrockway5• 13 years ago

Make taxes higher, I say. I hope to one day have a New York City entirely funded by its full-time residents, so we can stop pretending to care about tourists.

greenyoda3• 13 years ago

A huge percentage of full-time residents work in the tourist industry (e.g., hotels, theaters, museums, etc.). And a lot of NYC business sectors would be much smaller without the tourist population, like restaurants and retail stores. Without the tourists, there would be a lot of unemployed New Yorkers.

untog3• 13 years ago

Why? What about tourists makes New York so intolerable for you? Is your desk in Times Square?

rguzman• 13 years ago

Is there a provision that actually raises some tax along with this tax break?

notastartup3• 13 years ago

it can't be higher than Vancouver, BC.

Tax Payable on Earning 150k:

$$20,127 CAD (New York) $45,624 CAD (Vancouver, BC) 1.07 (USD/CAD)

gaadd333• 13 years ago

Is that $45K total Canadian taxes on it or just what you pay to BC?

$150K CAD ($140K USD) in NYC will result in you paying ~$58K CAD ($55K USD) in taxes between City, State and Federal.

dirktheman• 13 years ago

Where I live (The Netherlands) that would be 52%, so $78,000. Sweden is even worse with 57% ($85,500), but the Swedish have way better incentives like (almost) free education/healthcare etc.

bmmayer1• 13 years ago

I wonder what the trade-off is. I mean, business income taxes are generally a bad idea anyway, and it's great to see a state make a move toward eliminating them, but they would also need a way to offset lost revenue. Higher taxes on 10+ year businesses?

m_ke• 13 years ago

To qualify you need to start your business in the janitors closet at one of the amazing SUNY universities, which are conveniently located in the middle of nowhere.

greenyoda3• 13 years ago

There are also locations listed at CUNY (City University of New York) in NYC.

PKop2• 13 years ago

Perhaps they plan to make it up in volume, presumably from the increase in business / economic activity that will occur from businesses starting up / moving to NY

jrockway5• 13 years ago

Don't start your startup in New York or San Francisco. Rents here are twice what they are in more reasonable parts of the country, and you get absolutely nothing in exchange except maybe a slightly-less-shallow talent pool. (Oh, and cockroaches. Lots of cockroaches.) Your employees will be paid twice as well, and your offices will be twice as nice... for free... if you locate yourself outside the expensive parts of the country.

pragone• 13 years ago

I just want to point out that there are large portions of New York that are not New York City

mbillie1• 13 years ago

Exactly. Having grown up in between Albany and Saratoga, I'd be excited to see some more tech culture evolve there. I'm not tremendously optimistic, but if Atlanta can do it, why not Albany? (Atlanta being a similarly car-travel-intensive, sprawling pseudo-urban region)

tedunangst• 13 years ago

Pedantically, the name of the city is just New York. Given the context ("or San Francisco"), I think it's clear he didn't mean to include Buffalo. "New York or California" would have meant the entire state.

scarmig• 13 years ago

Yes, everyone, please stay out of the Bay Area! Don't even consider locating here, it's a hellhole!

dworin3• 13 years ago

I have a small company in New York, and agree with all of your reasons why it's terrible.

The one advantage besides talent pool (which is a big advantage!) that both New York and San Francisco have, and that's often overlooked, is proximity to customers. If you're in a business where high touch sales are important, or where you need to be able to meet regularly with your customers, it's very difficult to do remotely.

I'm not sure if the cost-benefit really plays out in New York's favor. I often think that for what it costs to live here, it might be cheaper just to fly in twice a month from someplace else. But it's certainly an advantage I underestimated when I started out.

jusben13693• 13 years ago

Great point and I think the answer is both. We're in Durham and it's fundamentally cheaper for us to be here and for me to fly to the Bay Area every 90 days for a week (admittedly I have family there still so accommodation is free) However, there are a lot of customers or prospective customers I never met because I have to formally schedule it around a trip. No random meet ups. No "Oh, you guys are just 4 blocks over? To heck with email let's get coffee and explain what we're doing"

silverlake• 13 years ago

Couldn't you put sales in NYC, but everything else in NJ/CT? Lots of banks have finally wised up to that.

untog3• 13 years ago

...unless you're looking for investment cash.

kloncks• 13 years ago

Depends on the kind of company you want to build.

The data proves that the kinds of companies that need a great engineering talent pool and venture capital will tend to hail just a couple of locations.

I'm not saying there aren't exceptions. There are. But in an endeavor where the failure risk is so high in the most optimal of circumstances, I wouldn't add another risk factor like location into the mix.

Just my thoughts.

jgalt212• 13 years ago

All of this may be true, or not true, but as far as geography is concerned, the #1 thing is to be near your customers. Do you know why Microsoft was first based in Albuquerque, NM of all places? Because that's where their biggest customer, MITS, was based.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft

thekevan5• 13 years ago

You mean New York City. There is a whole state outside of NYC that is great for start-ups.

jeffasinger• 13 years ago

This applies to all of New York State. Taxes aren't low, but cost of living is definitely very low. There's lots of Universities upstate too (both to colocate with, and to try to hire talented grads from).

greg5green• 13 years ago

There's not just lots of universities upstate, but some really good universities (Cornell, Syracuse, RIT, Rochester, UB, Albany, RPI off the top of my head)

joonix• 13 years ago

Nonsense. New York is not nearly as bad as SF for rent. I know someone who just rented a studio in the heart of lower Manhattan for $1500 and that includes heat and water. On top of that you don't need a car or Uber or any of that. Unlimited subway pass and/or a bike or CitiBike membership and you're set. That is absolutely manageable for a tech professional and well worth it for all the benefits of living here and access to opportunities. If you're doing a startup you're probably not that concerned with income taxes in the first few years. The one real downside is that office space is pretty expensive.

And I've lived here almost a year now and have never had a cockroach in my apartment, or even so much as a silverfish in the bath tub.

goldenkey2• 13 years ago

$1500, does that include the cockroaches and bed bugs? Because you better believe it.

gaadd333• 13 years ago

$1500? Sounds like they got lucky. Streeteasy shows only 3 apartments for rent for less than $1500 and one is an SRO. (http://streeteasy.com/nyc/for-rent/downtown/rental_type:frbo...)

I'm sure you can find a really tiny non legal space in Chinatown or similar but I'm not sure I would call that a bargain.

im_a_lawyer• 13 years ago

NYC is much cheaper than SF and much more pleasant to live in than vast majority of cities in the US. You wouldn't convince me to live anywhere on the west. I would rather make 2x less money in NYC than live in some tract suburb with identical housing, identical shops and identical people. Been there, done that.

avn21093• 13 years ago

But in your tract house, you can watch your giant TV and devote your life to consuming the maximum possible quantity of industrial products! How can you say no!?

rjsamson• 13 years ago

This program is largely focused on economic development in New York State outside of NYC. In NYC the program actually carries additional restrictions, while in Upstate NY it is easier for Universities to apply to designate space, and for companies be approved.

Unlike NYC, in Upstate NY rent and required salaries are lower - it's a great place to start a company (though I may be a bit biased).

cpfohl3• 13 years ago

Forget rent. In Upstate New York buying is cheaper than renting. There's an idea for a starting bonus: we'll give you the downpayment on your house.

avn21093• 13 years ago

Jane Jacobs is rolling in her grave right now.

chrislgrigg• 13 years ago

Got excited, then saw that your business must operate from university-affiliated property. Those of us already established in NYC and working from shared spaces, home, etc. are ineligible. Might still be worth it (I don't have the experience to say) but it's not for everyone.

http://startup-ny.com/faq/#b-9

_delirium3• 13 years ago

In addition, it has to be at a university that's applied for a "tax-exempt area" (the university has to make the application). This is still interesting, but not a blanket no-tax-for-startups program. It's closer to something like the way some countries set up industrial parks or Special Economic Zones or Free Trade Zones with special tax incentives. Except, any university in the state of NY can apply to turn itself into such a zone, rather than it only being a specific port or industrial park.

logicallee• 13 years ago

um...silicon valley already has this covered: you only pay taxes on revenues. (badam CHING).

gnicholas4• 13 years ago

profits, actually. But yes, "pre-revenue" companies have little to worry about in terms of corporate-level income taxes. Of course, if one of these pre-revenue startups gets gobbled up a la Instagram, then the founders and investors end up with large personal income tax bills—which are not affected by the NY policy. And yes, I realize your original comment was a joke, but it does raise a relevant point about the impact (or lack thereof) of the NY policy.

rdl• 13 years ago

SF and WA State have essentially a gross receipts tax, so there's some tax on revenue :(

gaadd333• 13 years ago

Don't employees in SV still have to pay state taxes on their salaries?

robomartin• 13 years ago

It's really interesting, funny and ironic that in a liberal, pro-tax-the-hell-out-of-everyone, government-knows-best state the best tool they can think of to entice businesses to set roots in the state is the elimination of income tax. Friggin hilarious. I almost got happy thinking that they started to understand but quickly realized it's a bait-and-switch. They are going to shaft these businesses one way or the other eventually and most-certainly after the ten year mark passes.

eli• 13 years ago

Startups in DC are exempt from many taxes for 5 years (and no capital gains on holdings older than 5 years). Makes sense that states would be competing for entrepreneurs.

suyash• 13 years ago

What about Income Tax and Payroll Tax? That is more important for employees.

gnicholas4• 13 years ago

The bulk of these are federal, and therefore unaffected by state & local policies. Agreed that they are much larger costs than state & local taxes for many/most startups.

_delirium3• 13 years ago

From the FAQ:

Employees hired for and whose jobs are certified as net new jobs in a tax-free area will pay no state or local income taxes for the first five years. For the second five years, employees will pay no taxes on income up to $200,000 for individuals, $250,000 for a head of household and $300,000 for taxpayers filing a joint return. There is an annual cap per business on the number of employees that qualify for this exemption and an annual cap statewide of 10,000 net new jobs (i.e., there will be a maximum of 10,000 tax-free jobs after year one, 20,000 tax-free jobs after year two, etc.)

curiousDog• 13 years ago

Could these be great money-laundering opportunities as well ;)? Establish a chain of start-ups, convert black money to white, tax free!

javajosh2• 13 years ago

Isn't this why people incorporate in Delaware? I don't really see the point of this.

seehafer• 13 years ago

People incorporate Delaware because of Delaware's well-codified, well-understood corporate law, that simplifies things like investments, M&A and the like.

Incorporating in Delaware doesn't exempt you from NYC income tax if you do all your business in NYC.

javajosh2• 13 years ago

That's embarrassing. But then again, I'm CA incorporated so I guess I never really understood the legal implications of extra-state incorporation. Thanks for clearing that up!

gnicholas4• 13 years ago

Not sure this is anywhere as good as it sounds. Most startups aren't profitable for several years (if ever), so income tax would not be an issue during this period. Even after there is income, there would be loss carry-forwards that would have soaked up income taxes from the first couple of profitable years. So this probably doesn't produce much benefit for much/most of the 10 years.

Eliminating sales tax isn't that big a benefit either: SASS, social, or other popular startup types would not pay much of this anyway (on purchases of desks, computers, etc?).

Property tax benefits could be sizable, though many bootstrapped startups don't have this for a couple of years anyway.

Cutting franchise taxes provides a small benefit that would probably help all startups.

As others have pointed out, the non-tax costs of being in an expensive city like NYC are substantial. And don't forget, NY isn't waiving personal income taxes—so if your startup does hit a homerun, they'll take their pound of flesh on the back end.

For some startups (like the rare one with high anticipated sales tax costs), this program might be enough to tip the scales in favor of locating in NY. For most startups, however, state/local tax cuts in the first 10 years are just not that big a deal. As the saying goes: don't let the tax tail wag the dog.

Looking at the policy from a macro perspective, it looks a lot like what Swiss cantons do to negotiate tax breaks for a limited time based on anticipated future tax revenues and job creation. Also seems a lot like what Ireland has done to build up its tech sector (and been chastised for of late: see Apple, Google, etc.). So it could be produce benefits (for NY), but it would of course pull talent from other regions, thereby reducing the net benefit.

dworin3• 13 years ago

I didn't think they were waiving personal income taxes either, but it actually looks like they are:

What is the Personal Income Tax exemption for employees?

Employees of businesses in START-UP NY will pay no income taxes on their wages for the first five years. For the second five years, employees will pay no taxes on income up to $200,000 of wages for individuals, $250,000 for a head of household and $300,000 for taxpayers filing a joint return.

(http://startup-ny.com/faq/#b-11)

gnicholas4• 13 years ago

Good catch, thanks! Of course, this still doesn't cover capital gains, dividends, or other income...

crazygringo2• 13 years ago

Still, that only applies to NYS/NYC income taxes.

You're still on the hook for federal income tax, which is most of your income tax. (Obviously, the state can't do anything about that!)

dworin3• 13 years ago

The hidden fine print is that you have to affiliate with a university and support that university's mission. I wonder how loose they'll be in interpreting that support. Does "providing internships to students every summer" count, or will it need to be more substantial?

gametheoretic• 13 years ago

The following is not sarcastic: be more cynical. What would you want, if you were a university president? Startup branding. They want you to walk around talking about how SUNY-whatever is where the startup culture is at.

gohrt• 13 years ago

a href="http://i-lab.harvard.edu/experiential-learning/startup-scram... Whatever do you mean? /a

Spooky23• 13 years ago

It's more substantial. Each state university school is earmarked for specific areas, and candidate companies are selected based on fit with each schools mission.

The idea is to build more integrated links with the universities. It's intended to help drive benefits similar to the successful model used by the SUNY College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering to partner with the semiconductor industry.

Note that this is really designed to benefit NY outside of NYC.

skizm• 13 years ago

Can I freelance for 10 years tax free in NY if I incorporate?

cpfohl3• 13 years ago

Yes, if you're: at a university. Oh, and if you support the University's mission. Oh, and if the University decides to allow it. Did you read the article? It wouldn't be New York State if there weren't 173 rules and regulations that had to be met before you were eligible.

ajiang2• 13 years ago

Ok, not really helpful.

You can't. The point of this program is to bring jobs to New york. You need to develop a forecast of new jobs your startup would bring to New York, which gets reported and reviewed on a regular basis. The penalties for not meeting those forecasts would be determined by your sponsoring university, which can include losing your tax free status for a year or getting kicked out of the program.

The regulations around this program aren't particularly onerous from reading the regulations document. You need to establish an understanding with a sponsoring university that your company will both benefit the community, the school's academic mission, and bring new jobs to New York. There are some reporting requirements, but that seems like a paltry ask compared to ~40-50% tax savings on profit and no income tax.

vishaldpatel• 13 years ago

Guessing that none of these tax-free zones will be in New York City.

ajiang2• 13 years ago

Read through the regulations, here's the gist:

-- New initiative to establish tax-free zones near and on university campuses

-- Businesses in those zones will operate 100% tax free for 10 years – no income, business, corporate, state, local, sales, property taxes nor franchise fees

-- Employees can be eligible to pay no income taxes as well

-- Business have to be either new startups OR expansion of existing businesses that will bring new jobs to New York state

-- Some industries are prohibited from participating

-- Types of companies targeted are in high-tech – generally engaged in the “design, development, and introduction of new biotech, IT, advanced materials, process engineering, electronic technology, and/or innovative manufacturing process”

crazygringo2• 13 years ago

This is pretty awesome, and it seems to apply to New York City too:

- In New York City, Long Island and Westchester County, businesses must be start-ups or one of a number of broadly defined “high technology” businesses.

But this looks like a major caveat:

- Participation in START-UP NY does not necessarily require that your business be on or next to a campus, but it must be located on property affiliated with a university.

That's a very "interesting" requirement. I wonder how it will work in practice? What does it mean for a property to be "affiliated"?

Edit: here are the 3 NYC locations: http://startup-ny.com/properties/new-york-city-properties/

carterschonwald• 13 years ago

agreed!

I'm a bit confused about the "need to work in a university provisioned space". Theres so many ways i'd rather interact with / collaborate with folks at universities than use their office space. Though If that meant I could have zero pay wells for papers I need to look up occasionally, that could be tempting!

jpwright• 13 years ago

Those 3 locations (all at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn) are "representative of the types of properties that may be available following submission of an application by the relevant university/college and approval by ESD and/or the Start-Up Approval Board". So, you could work with any university in NYC, not just SUNY Downstate (although the campus is a really nice spot for startups as well!)

NYU Poly operates incubators at Jay St/MetroTech in Brooklyn and Varick St in Manhattan. Columbia has a biotech incubator (AUDOBON) in Washington Heights. Cornell has 22k ft^2 in Google's building in Chelsea. All of those sounds like they would qualify (if you could get the right people on board)

skyebook• 13 years ago

I'm curious if SUNY gets what it wants and is allowed to close LICH whether they'd hang on to some of the space and try to get research into the area.. That's a huge tract of land (and I'd like to see it not sit completely vacant for a few years)

NYU-Poly has another incubator spot further up Jay St in DUMBO as well, looks like a nice space from the 15 minutes I've spent inside.

notastartup3• 13 years ago

Okay but the rents must be cheaper than Vancouver, BC right? Taxation must be lower too?

I signed up and planning to move there IF this is not one of those 'too good to be true' deal that ends up in snow flakes.

The tax rates in BC is insane both as an employee and employer. The cost of hiring an employee because of taxation and other social welfare benefits in an attempt to become more 'Netherlandly' forces down salary for software engineers and designers. What makes it worse the scarcity of such jobs forces engineers to compete with each other on the non-paid overtime one can work to become 'invaluable'. Plenty of software sweatshops here in BC, where a nurse or a manager at mcdonalds find more stability and higher pay (when you count the unpaid overtime).

Not to mention that up to 40% of any money you make goes to federal government and the BC government still trying to pay off the loans from holding the winter olympics.

Not to mention the special taxes on rent, food, bars, everything.

If the door opens, I'm going to be the first in line to get to NY if the tax thing turns out to be true. I hear New Yorkers are mean and cold, that's totally fine with me, I'd rather have someone admit they are an asshole and not hide behind it, rather than try to deny it to keep some false image as the 'warmest part of Canada and the whole world' thing. I've been part of this hypocrisy too long.

thekevan5• 13 years ago

New York is not synonymous with New York City.

There's a whole other state outside of NYC. In fact, many of us don't even like the city.

notastartup3• 13 years ago

Mind blown. I'm one of those ignorant Canadians that they constantly try to keep in the woods and deny the existence.

meddlepal• 13 years ago

I wonder, if, and how MA and Boston might respond? NYC is probably a bigger competitor than San Francisco is for getting start-ups in the region only because of proximity.

gojomo• 13 years ago

I love startups and hate high taxes, but programs like this are bad.

The rewards go to firms most able to jump through confusing and often quite arbitrary eligibility hoops, or race to collect benefits before they are capped. (In some cases, the firms' skill in doing so is because they helped draft the program or otherwise have connections to the governing authorities.)

Jurisdictions get into bidding wars for the new/relocating firms able to qualify... but continue to subject older/less-politically-connected firms to growth-stunting tax levels. So it's creating incentives to move/restructure/game-the-rules, and an uneven playing field between sources of growth, and advantaging lawyers and policy-arbitrageurs above other more customer-focused innovators.

Just make a fair, welcoming environment for all employers, new and old, big and small, novice and expert, insider and outsider.

pbreit• 13 years ago

This is why I hate being a democrat ( I know republicans do the same thing but I think hard to argue they have a stronger overall position of lower taxes for everyone). This kind of stuff is embarrassing. It seems like a secondary but big reason taxes are so high is so that politicos can hand out stupid breaks like this to arbitrary groups. Plus the fairly obvious admission that taxes diminish business growth.

I would say that tax breaks are not compelling to startups since they play almost no role. But the employee income tax waiver might be significant.

wiradikusuma• 13 years ago

Let say the person is not a US citizen. They recently incorporated (C-Corp or LLC) in a different state (e.g. Delaware). They're a one/two-person tech startup until forseeable future (e.g. building SaaS on the side). Are they eligible for this? (They might not be physically in US)

mikekij2• 13 years ago

As a startup CEO, I don't really care about income taxes. Most tech startups get acquired or fail before profitability. I care about personal capital gains tax. Give me a personal capital gains tax exemption and I'm in. I love Hudson.

lsc• 13 years ago

As a startup CEO, I don't really care about income taxes. Most tech startups get acquired or fail before profitability. I care about personal capital gains tax. Give me a personal capital gains tax exemption and I'm in. I love Hudson.

only if you are rich enough that you don't have to pay yourself.

The rest of us have gotta pay income taxes on all the money we take out to live on until we sell out. Really, it doesn't matter if that money comes from revenue, if you are bootstrapping like I am, or from investors, if you are funded. You've gotta pay income taxes on the money you take out.

Personally? I'd rather have higher capital gains than income taxes. I've gotta pay income taxes while I'm poor; I won't have to pay capital gains until I sell the company, and at that point, hopefully, I'll be rich and have a much lower marginal value for each additional dollar.

mikekij2• 13 years ago

I didn't get the impression that this tax break was on personal income tax, but corporate income tax. So you would only get a corporate income tax break if your company has a profit.

I was recently in the situation where I had to pay a ton of capital gains tax on an acquisition, even though my company never really had a profit, and therefore paid no corporate income tax.

But I agree. Not having to pay personal income tax would be sweet. You need to go to NH or TX for that.

davidw• 13 years ago

Why not just take the same money, and reduce taxes for all businesses, rather than favoring this, that or the other sector.

Italy does this a lot: incentives for biotech startups founded by Sardinian women under 35, or German speaking Italians over 50 with shoe companies, or whatever other silly thing some politician decides is a good idea. It creates incentives for people who are adept at navigating the bureaucracy and finding where the government money is directed, rather than simply getting on with business.

tolmasky• 13 years ago

Because tax breaks are the products politicians sell: http://youtu.be/TruCIPy79w8 (relevant portion about 5:28 in but it's all worth watching)

Start-up NY: 100% Tax-Free for 10 Years?

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