A windfall in corporate profits for the country’s largest banks has led to billions in extra tax revenue for New York City, shrinking the city’s budget shortfalls although not nearly enough to fund Mayor Zohran Mamdani‘s progressive agenda.
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Business tax revenue in June was about 50.9% higher than the same month in 2025, according to a report from New York City Comptroller Mark Levine’s office. Total business tax revenues reached almost $11 billion this year through June, up 9.5% compared to last year, Levine’s office said.
The boost, driven by record quarterly profits from banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co. and Morgan Stanley is clearly a positive for the city, according to Levine. But the fact that Wall Street’s bonanza and the resulting tax revenues aren’t enough to close the gap is a problem that needs addressing, he said.
“It underscores how heavily we continue to rely on the financial sector and short-term fiscal strategies to make up for the structural imbalance between recurring revenues and recurring spending,” said Levine. “City government must do the hard work of correcting this imbalance now, before it threatens the services New Yorkers rely on in the future.”
City officials expect a $6.4 billion deficit in the fiscal year that will begin on July 1, 2027, and estimate the city will face $8.2 billion and $8.5 billion deficits, respectively, for the next two fiscal years. The deficits are partly driven by rapid growth in social programs, including a rental assistance program for homeless New Yorkers and by city-funded private school tuition payments for special education students.
The Wall Street windfall has already been largely absorbed into the city’s spending plans, city budget documents show. In the $125.8 billion final budget Mamdani signed earlier this month, the city used $300 million of the better-than-expected tax revenue to help fund new expenses in the spending plan, which grew by $1.1 billion from the budget he proposed in May.
The city also used its extra business tax revenue to add $896 million to plans for pre-paying near-future expenses, Levine said.
