Taxes and Regulation Are Driving Entrepreneurs Out of New York

0:00 Speaker 1 Sunday morning. What us today is a good friend j T. Fox. He’s a Canadian American businessman and a worldwide investor in real estate and various other companies, and I mean worldwide. And JT, thank you for calling in this Sunday morning.

0:17 And what country or what stead are you in.

0:20 Speaker 2 I’m actually home in Nashville, so I will last you make me feel bad all the time. Nashville is a great city, great city, but interesting times here happening as the rest of the country, which is I think something I remember.

0:35 Speaker 1 Right, Nashville has no taxes. A lot of New Yorkers are moving to Tennessee if they don’t want to go all the way to Florida.

0:45 Speaker 2 Yeah, but they still vote Democrats, so I don’t understand. They’re all on my street. So I understand they move there and they complain about New York, but then they want the same people here who think that downtown Nashville, John is crazy because it’s the it’s sort of the crust of Tennessee. And they just increased everybody’s taxes on

1:05 Broadway in Second Broadway is the you know, it’s the fifth avenue of sort of Nashville, and they just added everybody’s tax bill six hundred thousand raised, everybody’s taxes and assessments, and business cannot make it work. And so now they have to leave and their business is going out of business.

1:25 And so what happened to the American Dream? I reread your book in the last few days for the second time. How far do you want to go? Right? That’s the premise of this immigrant like yourself, who came to this great country and build great success. And now I’m taking a look at the American dream in New York, and

1:44 New York is not killing businesses with one bush. It’s adest by a thousand cuts right now. And the American dream used to be you work harder, you keep more. And in New York City right now and all over the country town, it’s the opposite. The harder you work, the more you make, the more people who are way

2:00 need to take a piece from you, attack you for being entrepreneurism. Where is this? This country was built on the American dream? How many businesses when you walk into the streets are vacant right now? Year on year there’s been taxing, businesses dropped at a higher amount than being created.

2:18 You have health insurance premiums John that have gone up in New York per average small business person fourteen percent. Payroll taxes have now increased even more. There’s fifteen thousand, almost sixteen thousand empty storefront. People can’t afford it. And if you can’t afford it, what’s the point. And you are the man in New York there who’s gotta we

2:38 gotta listen to the fundamentals of your book. But when I read your book, I don’t know if it’s possible to do it in today’s market.

2:44 Speaker 1 Well, j T, you’re a Canadian. You live in the United States. You’re living in a great Nashville where I lived for two years in nineteen eighty three eighty four when I ran Capital Airlines. And you’re also worldwide. Sometimes you’re in Australia, sometimes you’re in Italy. You’re all over the place. So when you invest your money, see what

3:07 the people from California, Illinois and New York State have to realize. A guy like you invest your money, You’re gonna put it where where you’re gonna get the best investment, not where you’re gonna get the least investment.

3:21 Speaker 2 Well, that’s true. But if I’m gonna invest in New York or California or Illinois, and then I’m just gonna have to I’m gonna make good money, but I’m gonna have to give over half of it to taxes and then have the possibility being sued and being very pro litigation, and litigation is expensive, especially in New York. Like you

3:39 have to make it easy for people. There has to be a compromised.

3:42 Speaker 1 The lawyers in Nashville are one thousand dollars an hour. The lawyers in New York are three thousand dollars an hour. Which ones do you want to pick?

3:50 Speaker 2 Well, that too, But the point is that we used to encourage people to dream big in this country, right, that was the rhetoric, and that was your book about it is probably and everyone has to pick up the book.

4:00 And when I reread it and I’m like, that’s the America I came to seventeen years ago, Like reading your book, like excited, proud that I was in America, proud to be contributing. And now it just we’re just so divided and for me and you, and it’s easier because we’re known and we’ve been a long time. But there’s a

4:18 lot of people that are starting and they can’t even make ends meet. And it’s just it seemed that the game is rigged against small businesses in this way that we don’t want to succeed, we want to keep and that, by the way, that’s going to more towards communism. Where’s the American dream? So you tell me, John, how far

4:33 can people go in New York and small businesses?

4:36 Speaker 1 It’s getting harder. Let me tell you. I have retail stores that I’ve had for fifty years in Manhattan. We’re paying highest rents in the world, the highest electricity rates in the world. We’re paying commercial real estate taxes and then commercial rent tax and now congestion tax. So on top of the rent, you’re paying real estate taxes plus

5:03 the congestion tax, plus commercial rent tax. You pay the tax on the tax on the tax.

5:11 Speaker 2 Do you want to hear something crazy, John? You know I’m in Australia. I’ve called you from Australia. The government is going to pass a law that if your stock portfolio went up a million dollars, you’re going to be tax on the increases. If it goes down, it doesn’t do anything until you sell. Then what they did is

5:28 Australia they’ve made a lot of money and properties. There’s been a phenomenal market. They killed every investor loan as well, and it’s just it killed the market, literally killed the market. And I just don’t know where where’s the backbone. The backbone is the great workers of the State of New York and all over, but also employers, and they have

5:47 to work hand to hand. We both need each other. And I think instead of just pointing the finger to anybody who’s rich, and by the way, anybody who’s rich, they’re sacrifice. You know, they’ve worked really, really hard, and where a country built of immigrants and migrants have work hard.

6:00 But if it’s good, we’re going to be penalized. It the more I work, the less I make or I get tax. What’s the point which means people are going to hire robots, they’re going to hire ai They’re going to hire things like that, not because they don’t want to because they can’t afford it. They’re going to replace

6:13 robots and kitchens because it’s going to be cheaper, because nobody wants to work and minimum wage is going to be twenty eight dollars. I get there’s a disparity of income power, but there has to be a balance, and we have to bring the American dream back. And I think we need to do an event John together or

6:28 segment the radio to give people hope, because I’m telling you, John, people are losing hope. They’ve given up. They just say, like, what’s the point.

6:36 Speaker 1 I look forward to spending some time together and let me know what state I should move some money to and we’ll catch up again real soon.

6:45 Speaker 2 Everybody’s bank account. Who’s listening now? The state of the people