Watch: 'Millionaire's Tax' Outlined As Way To Save Subway

NEW YORK CITY, NY – Following weeks of political fighting over the deteriorating subways, Mayor Bill de Blasio on Monday proposed a millionaires’ tax to provide steady revenue for the system.

“We need a millionaires’ tax so that New Yorkers who typically travel in first class pay their fair share so the rest of us can get around, so the rest of us can get to work, so the rest of us can live our lives here in this city,” he said at a press conference at Brooklyn Borough Hall. (Watch it here.)

The roughly 0.5-percent income tax hike would apply to New Yorkers making $500,000 or more per year. De Blasio said that would eventually raise $800 million a year for the MTA, funds he wants to dedicate to modernizing the subways and discounted fares for low-income people.

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He didn’t go into detail about upgrading the subways, but said, “We’re going to have to fix the things that were ignored for so long.”

As for the discounted fares, the mayor’s budget director said anyone at the federal poverty level would be eligible for half-price MetroCards. That would come to about 800,000 people.

MTA Chairman Joe Lhota was quick to attack de Blasio.

“The Mayor has not acknowledged that the MTA needs funding today,” he said in a Monday statement. “You can’t delay an emergency plan to stop delays. The challenges the subways are facing today need immediate resources and solutions right now, not years from now.”

Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Lhota, who was appointed by the governor, have called on the city to split the roughly $800 million cost of recently proposed subway fixes. De Blasio has refused, saying the state took funds the city meant for the MTA and allocated them to other purposes.

The proposed new tax, part of legislation authored by state Sen. Mike Gianaris (D-Queens) and Assemblyman Danny O’Donnell (D-Manhattan), needs approval from the governor and legislature to become law.

“I think there’s going to be a lot of pressure from the grassroots for this change to happen,” de Blasio said. “I talk to more and more New Yorkers who understand that the governor and the state control the MTA. They want accountability. They want change.”

For people making $500,000 or more per year, city income taxes would go up from 3.876% to 4.41% – a hike of 0.534%.

De Blasio called it “a modest increase.”

“For an individual making about $1 million a year and obviously doing very, very well... that individual will pay about $2,700 more in their annual taxes,” he said. “It means about $7 a day.”

Cuomo is considering imposing surcharges on for-hire vehicles in the city – so-called “congestion pricing” – as a way to raise funds for the MTA, according to the New York Times.

On Monday, de Blasio said he hadn’t seen that proposal.

“I think this is the best option,” he said of the millionaires’ tax, "but we’ll certainly look at any other proposal that comes along.”

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Lead image by Rob Bennett/Office of Mayor of New York/Getty Images.