WCBJ
WESTCHESTER COUNTY
BUSINESS JOURNAL
YOUR only SOURCE FOR regional BUSINESS NEWS | westfaironline.com
October 22, 2012 | VOL. 48, No. 43
State taking refund claims for MTA tax
S warehouse spectacle of costumed fashions, from vintage Julius Caesar to vintage Marie Antoinette to vintage Elvis Presley, the phone has been ringing off the hook as Halloween approaches. On a recent Monday, when Zweibon’s shop on a former factory floor of the Alexander Smith Carpet Mills at 530 Nepperhan Ave. usually is closed, 24 calls piled up on the answering machine as the owner, tailor’s tape measure draped around her neck, tended to a steady
tate officials ended a frustrating wait for business owners and tax consultants with a recent directive on protective claims for tax refunds that employers can file while a state appeals court weighs the legality of the 3-year-old Metropolitan Transportation Authority payroll tax. A state Supreme Court judge on Long Island in late August ruled the law creating the tax is unconstitutional. Justice R. Bruce Cozzens Jr. in his decision said the tax – 34 cents per $100 of payroll for employers in the MTA’s 12-county commuter transportation district – was created by a special law that affected some but not all counties in the state. It therefore required a home-rule message from affected local governments requesting the state Legislature to enact the tax law, Cozzens said. State officials have filed an appeal with the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals. MTA officials called the Long Island judge’s ruling “erroneous” and said they expect it to be overturned, since four prior court challenges to the tax and its constitutionality were dismissed. The case has not yet been added to the Court of Appeals calendar. Michele Babcock, a partner at Jacobowitz and Gubits L.L.P., the Walden firm representing the Orange County Chamber of Commerce and three Hudson Valley municipalities in the lawsuit field two years ago in Nassau County, said the Court of Appeals must first decide whether it has authority to review the case on strictly constitutional ground. Plaintiffs in the original case, which include Westchester County, claim the highest court does not have jurisdiction, Babcock said. “It really comes down to whether it’s a constitutional issue,” she said.
Artful, page 6
State taking, page 6
Artful costumer forsakes the art of the deal BY JOHN GOLDEN jgolden@westfairinc.com
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t’s a little mess in here,” said Yon Yuh Zweibon, offering an apology for her office without walls and a cluttered scattering of chairs in her Beyond Costume shop in Yonkers. “A little mess?” said an employee at a work table, laughing at her understating boss. At Beyond Costumes, a 22,000-square-foot brick-
BY JOHN GOLDEN jgolden@westfairinc.com
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