Socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani wants to raise corporate taxes to pay for billions of dollars of freebies for New Yorkers, he told The Post in an exclusive sit-down.
The Queens state assemblyman, 33, said his plans for his socialist utopia involve subsidizing free transit and childcare with higher taxes on corporations and establishing city-run food stores, freezing rent for millions of New Yorkers and creating a new safety plan for the city.
The out-of-nowhere candidate, who has been surging in recent polls, said his campaign has a “relentless focus” on making New York City more affordable through a sizable expansion of government — which he says lies in direct contrast to controversial competitor Andrew Cuomo.
“We have a North Star,” said the Astoria pol, referring to his campaign’s economic agenda.
“That is all driven by the belief that working-class New Yorkers cannot afford to worry about anything beyond cost, because it’s cost that is pushing them out of the city that they love,” Mamdani said, stating that one in four New Yorkers live in poverty.
“Whether it’s the cost of rent, childcare or metro card groceries, New Yorkers are on the brink.”
Mamdani, who unabashedly leans to the left, plans to fund his far-left ideas by raising the corporate tax rate to match those of surrounding states.
New Jersey, for example, levied an 11.5% tax rate from 2021 to 2023 before dropping back down to 9%, while New York has maintained a 7.25% rate.
“If we were to match the gap between that New Jersey tax rate and our own, that would pay for the bulk of this agenda,” Mamdani said.
The mayoral candidate was confident that the dramatic jump in tax costs wouldn’t drive companies out of the city.
Even if businesses moved their headquarters out of state, they would still be subject to the taxes as long as they continued to do business in the Empire State — where the demand is too high to decline, he said.
For further funding of his programs, the mayoral candidate has floated legislation to end, or significantly reduce, tax exemptions for towering Big Apple institutions such as Columbia and New York universities.
Last month, Mamdani introduced a bill that would force the private schools to cough up more money, which would then be funneled toward funding the sprawling public City University of New York network.
“There is an immense amount of money. It’s just who [it] is actually serving. And we are telling the story of our campaign as one that will fight for working-class people and is willing to tax the wealthiest in order to make that possible and kind of get into it a little bit there,” Mamdani explained.
The extra money freed up through hiked tax rates and diminished exemptions would help offset the roughly $6 billion a year it costs to run universal childcare — which averages around $25,000 per family, he continued.
The extreme costs were the No. 1 reason for the recent exodus of families from the Big Apple, followed by skyrocketing housing costs, Mamdani said.
Former Mayor Bill de Blasio made his appeal to voters with similar progressive policies, promising free, universal pre-K for Big Apple families. He was only able to finally fulfill the campaign vow in the final years of his administration when the federal government surged millions of dollars into the city during COVID.
Another freebie Mamdani hopes to subsidize is bus travel, which would mean scrapping the city’s Fair Fares program altogether.
“When you have a universal approach, you capture everyone,” Mamdani said.
“The cost of free buses is about, let’s say, $700 million or something a year. And I believe that we can pay for that as well as universal child care through what I’m talking about with the raising of corporate tax rates, as well as through more effective use of city revenue.”
Another major peg of Mamdani’s mayoral run lies in his plans to strip the NYPD from duties relating to mental-health crisis intervention, homelessness outreach and traffic ticketing, instead handing those responsibilities to a new group: the Department of Community Safety.
He plans to unveil the proposed department next month, saying it is crucial in the “post-pandemic world” to separate police activity from the non-nefarious areas of New York City life.
“I think that we can deliver a safer city by making it clear what the responsibilities are of the Police Department,” Mamdani said.
Mamdani, a professed proud socialist, painted himself in direct opposition to disgraced former Gov. Cuomo, who announced his mayoral bid last week.
Despite Cuomo’s history of sexual harassment and negligence allegations, he pulled a commanding lead in a poll last month, beating out Mamdani’s second-place 12% approval rating with a jaw-dropping 38%. Cuomo has denied all the allegations against him.
Mamdani remains confident that his clear political agenda will come out on top.
“I think the thing that New Yorkers hate more than a politician they disagree with is one that they can’t trust,” Mamdani said.
“What he is looking to do for the duration of this race is evade any and all questions as to the record he actually has, and instead speak to this moment.”
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