Neil deMause: The Website

The “Geoffrey Loophole” is not only a way that big corporations get out of paying taxes that their small-business competitors have to, it’s also the only tax dodge named after a cartoon giraffe:

When the Massachusetts passed its much-delayed state budget last week, it included an obscure tax-law change that could be crucial for small-business owners concerned about unfair competition. By becoming the 22nd state to adopt “combined reporting” legislation, Massachusetts lawmakers are hoping to put a stop to a longstanding practice that, they say, gives large corporate chains an unfair advantage over their smaller competitors at tax time… [read more]

The New York State assembly held its first hearing on the Yankees’ request for more publicly subsidized bonds, and I was on the scene for all the excitement.

As promised, state assemblymember Richard Brodsky held a hearing this morning into the Yankees’ latest request for $350 million (or so - see below) in city-backed tax-exempt bonds to help pay for extra doodads for their new stadium. The surprise: On the hot seat for the entire three-hour hearing was a single witness, Economic Development Corporation president Seth Pinsky, who at times struggled to come up with detailed responses to the questions posed by an increasingly impatient Brodsky… [read more]

New York City is facing the prospect of bus and subway fare hikes again, but could there be another way to do this?

As if New Yorkers hadn’t been beset by enough bad news of late — foreclosures going through the roof, “The Real World” filming its next season in Brooklyn — last week the MTA chimed in with word that its latest round of budget woes would force it to “defer” planned service upgrades, possibly forever. With $500 million in red ink projected for next year, MTA chief Lee Sander declared, the authority needed to put off everything from renovating crumbling subway stations to buying new double-length buses - and still may consider another fare hike next year.

To blame is the MTA’s financing system, which draws roughly equally from fares and from a series of dedicated taxes… [read more]

A look ahead to Saturday’s Mermaid Parade, which itself is looking ahead to Tuesday’s public hearing on the future of Coney Island:

Coney Island’s annual Mermaid Parade isn’t usually a place for broad political messages, except when reclaiming pasties as a symbol of women’s empowerment can be considered political. These aren’t normal times, however. Last year, as the battle over Thor Equities’ plan for beachfront condo towers heated up, the “Save Coney Island” section was a small contigent of the festivities; at this year’s parade, stepping off tomorrow at 2 pm, expect it to be the major theme.

First off, it will undoubtedly be the first time that the hundreds of thousands of gawkers there to take in the sights will be handed flyers for a city scoping meeting…

…and still more, including new figures for the amount of public subsidy the Yanks would be getting. (And if you’re worried about the technical details being too dry, note that I’m now officially “someone who can write about [stadium finance] without making any eyes bleed.”)

The taxpayer cost of the Yankees’ latest request for city bonds went up on Friday, as the city Independent Budget Office released a more detailed analysis of just how much tax revenue will be lost if the Family Steinbrenner is allowed to use tax-exempt bonds to finance an additional $350 million in construction costs. The total public price tag, according to IBO deputy director George Sweeting: $82.9 million, with $3.6 million coming from city coffers, $6.7 million from Albany, and the remaining $72.6 million from the feds. As for the Yanks, according to Sweeting, they’d pocket $61.9 million in savings. (Apparently the tax-exempt bond racket requires cutting bondholders in on a sizable piece of the action.)… [read more]

More on the New York Yankees’ latest demands for city-backed bonds…

When the rich want to get richer off the public till, one trick is to make the theft so boring that only a trained accountant could understand it without dozing off. If Ken Lay had tried to pump up Enron’s stock by, say, floating rubber checks, he would have been tabloid fodder from Day 1; instead, nobody noticed until it was too late, largely because manipulating “stranded costs” and other nuances of the electricity markets made even regulators’ eyes glaze over… [read more]

With the cost of the New York Yankees’s new stadium project running close to $2 billion, the team has asked the city for another $350 million in city-backed tax-exempt bonds to help raise money for the project. I break down the numbers for the Village Voice, and also examine whether the whole thing might be illegal:

Next time you’re tempted to conclude that New York’s state legislature is entirely useless, remember this: State Assemblymember Richard Brodsky broke the news on Tuesday that the Yankees are looking to get an additional $350 million in city tax-exempt bonds for their new stadium, currently under construction in the Bronx.

“The explosion of public debt issued by obscure semi-public and private institutions is reaching unmanageable proportions,” declared Brodsky, chair of the committee overseeing public authorities. “The Yankee Stadium financing may or may not be a good thing, but it certainly should be done in the light of day.”

In the interest of daylight, then: The $350 million the Yanks are seeking would be on top of the $940 million in city bonds the team already got in 2006… [read more]

It’s hard to find much to add to a story that begins with a young couple trying to evict 15 families so they can turn their apartment building into a mansion, but I give it the old college try anyway:

The Battle of 47 E. 3rd St. - the five-story East Village tenement whose landlords want to turn it into a private mansion - has everything: a five-year legal battle; architectural plans for remaking entire apartments into a home gym and nanny’s quarters; tenants and landlords duking it out by plastering dueling Web addresses (economakis.com and 47e3.org, for those interested) in their windows… [read more]

A brief item on the Voice site on a Coney Island fixture quitting the local development board in protest of the city’s revised plans for redeveloping the famed amusement strip:

Six weeks after Mayor Bloomberg abruptly revamped his Coney Island rezoning plans to include fewer outdoor amusements and more 30-story hotels, Sideshows by the Seashore director and “mayor of Coney Island” Dick Zigun has quit the board of the Coney Island Development Corporation, the city-spawned agency in charge of the redevelopment plans.

“The [original] CIDC Plan promised a world class tourist attraction with an entertainment core: lots of rides complimented by year round nightclubs and enclosed waterparks,” wrote Zigun in his resignation letter, which he posted to his own Coney Island USA’s message board… [read more]

From an article in amNewYork (Newsday’s free daily) on how European tourists don’t tip enough at New York restaurants:

Some restaurants have wizened up and now put gratuity right into the bill.

Unless they’re talking about really old restaurateurs, amNewYork’s editors need to wise up and get a dictionary. Not to mention an article for “gratuity,” which isn’t a collective noun like “coffee.” Two grammatical errors in one sentence - now that’s giving readers their money’s worth.