The New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA), a union reportedly comprised of 28,000 of the city’s taxicab and for-hire vehicle (FHV) drivers, has demanded a $5,200 annual tax reduction on leasing vehicles for yellow cabs, Uber, and Lyft drivers.
“Today, Yellow Cab, Uber, and Lyft drivers are leasing their vehicles, paying $5,200 in taxes every year. A tax, by the way, that is imposed on the drivers, yet that same tax is not imposed on private jets or even on yachts,” Bhairavi Desai, Executive Director of NYTWA, told a congregation in Albany.
Thousands of New Yorkers, including Taxi and for-hire transportation (TLC) drivers, joined the gathering yesterday to build the fight to ‘Tax the Rich, Not the Poor!’
Desai said all lease drivers, whether they rent a yellow cab or a black car to work with Uber, Lyft, or a neighborhood livery base, also pay sales taxes on the lease.
The labor leader said while NYS billionaires and corporations have been protected against having to pay their share of taxes to support the public interest, NYC cab drivers have been paying our share for years.
Even though drivers have no guaranteed income, paid time-off, or retirement, and work 60-hour weeks in a dangerous job, she pointed out, thousands of NYC yellow cab drivers have been collecting taxes since 2009 on each fare that goes toward revenue for the MTA.
“Collectively, we have turned in over $1.2 billion. When the state enacted the 50 cents tax on all taxi trips in 2009, we were stripped of revenue we had been banking on to provide health insurance to drivers — a workforce who at the time had a higher rate of being uninsured than other New Yorkers,” the alliance chief observed.
When Albany leadership decided to add an additional tax to taxi trips in 2018, it was on the same day we stood at the steps of City Hall mourning the fourth driver brother we lost to suicide due to the economic downturn of the industry. The new tax of $2.50 on trips below 96th Street costs cabbies an average of $10,000 in annual income, she said, adding, “The metered rate went up, but not a penny of it for drivers, all while we lost short trips due to the increase. We decried it as Albany’s Suicide Surcharge.”
It’s time the wealthy pay their share, and the working-class is given our fair share of a better life. As drivers, we need funding support not just for our quality of life, but also for our work and operating expenses, which we pay out of pocket at the start of every shift.
Last year, she said Mayor Adams cut a program that cost drivers who operate federally mandated wheelchair-accessible taxis $3,000 in income.
Bhairavi Desai, who began fighting for taxi drivers in 1996 at the age of 23, put forward a set of demands for the taxi and for-hire drivers. The demands include funding the remaining medallion loans for our historic debt forgiveness program, tax relief for the purchase of accessible vehicles (savings of $5,500), lower fees and less draconian ticketing penalties, capital support for a driver mutual insurance company, and a retirement program for all drivers.
The NYTWA leader went on saying, “We have needs. We have dreams. We have paid for our share. It’s time for Albany to tax the rich, not the poor.”