Ray Rogers reached folk hero status in the American labor movement half a century ago after scoring resounding victories against seemingly unstoppable corporations like textiles giant J. P. Stevens & Company. He later took on Coca-Cola in the 2000s, leading college campuses to ban products from the soft drinks titan across the country.
Today, Rogers thinks his recent efforts to repeal the Stock Transfer Tax rebate, which he operates out of his humble East Harlem apartment, could dwarf his past accomplishments. If successful, New York State could raise a conservative estimate of $13 to $20 billion from a slumbering sales tax on Wall Street to fund public services and programs for everyday New Yorkers in what the Corporate Campaign founder calls “greed vs. need.” He jumped at the opportunity when former presidential candidate Ralph Nader recruited him to lead the grassroots movement.
“I said this could be the most important campaign that I ever worked on, by the very nature of the resources that it could bring in,” said Rogers. “To meet the social and economic needs of millions of people — it’s a no-brainer.”
The money stems from a sales tax on Wall Street’s stock trades dating back 120 years ago. Based on the selling price, each transfer would be taxed no more than 5 cents per the most expensive shares that cost $20 or more — in other words, less than 1%. But New York stopped collecting the money by the early 1980s. Since then, stock traders could reclaim 100% of the tax paid through a rebate program.
“As consumers, we all pay sales taxes on nearly every item we buy to pay for public services, ranging from police and firefighters to schools, sanitation, health care, housing, transportation, and infrastructure,” said Nader in a statement. “So why is the state rebating billions of dollars every year since 1981, collected from the sale of securities, back to wealthy brokerage firms rather than applying those taxes to programs that promote social well-being for everyone?”
A bill (A01494A/S01237) reintroduced this year by Assemblymember Phil Steck and State Senator James Sanders Jr. would repeal the rebate to re-establish the tax. They maintain the legislation would overwhelmingly affect a minority of “high-frequency” day traders, speculators, and hedge funds rather than everyday New Yorkers, who often hold onto their shares and wait.
“We have tried to do things to make this a far more livable state, and we found a relatively easy way of doing it,” said Sanders. “Almost painless [and] pennies on a dollar that would aid the people of New York State immensely.”
Early origins of the Stock Transfer Tax
Republican Gov. Frank W. Higgins enacted the stock transfer tax back in 1905, despite threats of Wall Street flocking to Chicago or New Jersey. The legislation pushed through thanks to a budget crisis and the state began levying the tax on stock trades. The New York Stock Exchange not only remained in New York City, but NASDAQ also moved in.
“New York’s stock exchanges are the dominant players in the world,” said economist James Henry. “They’re about 40% of the global traffic, and depending on the year, that’s as much as $150 to $175 trillion a year of stock trades alone, not counting all of the other financial instruments. The tax from the New York standpoint is attractive because it’s very easy to collect [and] hard to avoid.”
Henry also noted that “it’s paid by non-New Yorkers to a large extent. Many of the people who are trading on the stock exchange are based elsewhere, so what’s not to like?”
When another financial crisis hit the city during the 1970s, Albany called on Wall Street for help. As a result, Democratic Gov. Hugh Carey signed a bill into law ostensibly eliminating the tax in 1977. Over a four-year span, the rebate scaled up the percentage of how much stockbrokers could reclaim.
“I can’t figure out why it was eliminated except to say that the ’80s was a period of artificial exuberance about Wall Street,” said Steck.
By October 1981, Wall Street could recuperate the entire tax, even though complex legal reasons meant the state never fully repealed it. According to Henry, the rebate effectively returned more than $450 billion to stock traders.
A bill for the times
While the original bill predates the second Trump administration, some proponents like Rogers and Sanders see repealing the rebate as a direct solution to federal funding cuts to the state. And recent amendments to the version reintroduced this year mandate exactly which social services the tax funds, rather than simply going towards the state budget.
“This bill would do so much for workers, particularly in the public sector,” said Rogers. “This bill is gonna protect a lot of those workers [and] their jobs. It’s gonna allow social services and infrastructure work to be done. It’s not an answer to everything, but it is a big answer, particularly with the Trump cuts coming. And even if [the] Trump cuts weren’t coming, this bill is so important [that] it should’ve been passed years ago when you think of the tens and tens of billions of dollars that have been lost since 1981, when they no longer collected the tax for public use.”
Earlier this month, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security revoked $325.5 million in federal funding toward local infrastructure. In Central Harlem, a stormwater project lost $50 million and efforts to build floodwalls for the Polo Grounds public housing development lost $11.5 million.
Recent amendments to the bill would establish a program “for the purpose of making five payments toward the replacement and rehabilitation of existing local municipally owned and funded drinking water, stormwater, and sanitary sewer systems.”
In March, Hochul also announced the federal government cut more than $360 million in funding toward the state’s health, mental health, and addiction services. Under the current amended bill, 10% of the money raised will go toward the Department of Health.
However, Steck disagreed with the notion. “I think the concept of the stock transfer taxes is actually quite timeless,” he said, pointing to how the tax felt as relevant back in 1905 as in 2025.
Real threats to relocate or Wall Street’s bull?
Critics for reinstating the Stock Transfer Tax fear the bill will drive the city’s financial heart toward other states, just as they did in 1905, but technological advancements mean less dependence on physical exchanges and colored jackets than back then.
“The fact [is] that things aren’t done by exclusively physical paper slips being handed back-and-forth between traders on Wall Street,” said Patrick Oreki, director of state studies at the Citizens Budget Commission. “And the fact that you can potentially just move where the computers are running transactions makes it that much more mobile of an industry.
“Plus, on top of that, every other reason that a lot of firms are choosing to expand in other places like Texas — which has picked up a big amount of financial services activity — would just be another straw on the camel’s back to encourage financial services to move elsewhere.”
A Wall Street exodus would probably play out in a slow bleed rather than an immediate mass exit, according to Oreki. He said the Texas Stock Exchange, which is currently getting off the ground in Dallas, would lure stock traders to the Lone Star state. While exchanges in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong already tax stock transfers, New York would be the only U.S. state with such a policy if the rebate is repealed.
Oreki also argued that the potential of pushing out the biggest stock traders could jeopardize existing state tax revenue from the financial sector. State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli reported Wall Street contributed $19.4 billion to the state budget, which makes up around 19% of total tax collections. Most of the money stems from income taxes.
However, Henry is willing to play a game of “chicken” with Wall Street to fund the city’s various needs, pointing to power grid and climate change issues in southern states. “It’s a culture, and the corporations that have registered in New York to be traded on the stock exchange have gone through a lot of vetting to be listed on the stock exchange,” he said. “It’s not an easy process … there’s a real advantage in having the cluster of all the different interest groups that are located in major cities. New York is the poster boy for that model.”
“Greed vs. Need” movement grows
Steck told the Amsterdam News he believes his bill will need a movement to pass. He, Sanders, and Rogers will take to Wall Street this Wednesday, Apr. 23, outside the old JP Morgan building across from the stock exchange.
“We’ve got to get a movement [that is] what will support it,” said Steck. “And it takes overlooking lobbying efforts of various kinds by the securities industry.”
Rogers remains no stranger to taking on herculean challenges through his personally coined “corporate campaigns.” “There’s only one way to confront power, and that’s with power,” he said. “You have to put together a vehicle of power, which I called a corporate campaign … it has a real body of thought and expertise behind it.”
Some early proponents include Andy Morrision from the New Economy Project and Rashida Tyler from the New York State Council of Churches and Interfaith Affordable Housing Collaborative. Both will speak on Wednesday. Morrison pointed to economic racial justice for his support.
“People hurt most by our financial system and the economic crashes and the austerity that the financial system perpetuates are the same ones who’ve been systematically excluded — particularly [in] Black and Brown neighborhoods,” he said. “Generating revenue for schools and transit and housing and health care is critical at this moment, because those are the services and the public goods that routinely suffer disinvestment while these hedge funds pocket a rebate.”
For Tyler, supporting a Stock Transfer Tax would offer a “trickle down” for the roughly 7,500 congregations she helps represent. She pointed to declining church attendance in New York due to higher costs of living, while those same houses of worship face greater demands to assist with needs like food and housing.
“As people of faith, we are commanded to tackle these problems that are systemic and to try to find a solution, because you want every person in your state to live with dignity, to have access to those things [that] enable them to have a better future and to provide for their families and themselves,” said Tyler. “That’s basically the approach that we at the [New York State Council of Churches] take.
“We looked at how our taxation system is very unequal … everyday people, if we go to the grocery store and buy ramen noodles, we have to pay 8 cents on the dollar. If we go to Wall Street, we get a free pass if we’re trading Coca-Cola stocks. I have to pay tax on Coca-Cola at the store, but not if I trade its stock.”
Tyler hails from the “rapidly gentrifying” Kingston in Ulster County. She said residents in rural and suburban New York also face rising housing costs, along with a lack of reliable public transportation. The Stock Transfer Tax would also fund municipalities outside of New York City.
The long road ahead begins in Albany as the movement puts shoe leather to Wall Street this week. “We’re in a holding pattern right now with the governor,” said Sanders. “We are arguing over things that are not budget-related, and sooner or later a breakthrough on those issues will occur.
“When they occur, there’s now a question of what’s left to speak about and the battle will heat up over these issues. And God willing, we will be well-positioned to win.”
Tandy Lau is a Report for America corps member who writes about public safety for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep him writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.