New York City power-broker Kathryn Wylde, who in 2017 urged local Dems to stop bashing and work with President Donald Trump, announced Thursday that she will retire after more than four decades with the Partnership for New York.
Wylde — who joined the pro-business lobby group in 1982 and became CEO of the non-profit in 2011 — has been a vocal advocate for cutting red tape to encourage investment in the Big Apple during both Democratic and Republican administrations.
But before riding off into retirement, Wylde warned about curtailing workarounds to the SALT cap such as pass-through entity taxes, known as PTET, that will force companies and big earners to hand over billions more in deductions to state coffers.
Amending the PTET loophole was buried in the Trump-backed legislative bill — as The Post reported this week — that was passed by the House earlier in the day.
“New York is a very high tax state right now, and depending on what happens with the federal tax bill, things could get worse. In the congressional bill, it talks about the elimination of the state and local tax deductibility on partnerships and LLCs, which would be terrible for New York,” Wylde told The Post.
“The professional services sector is our second-largest employer after healthcare. It’s certainly our largest private sector employer, and this is a direct hit at professional services, law firms, accounting firms, consulting firms, technology companies.”
The Partnership of New York represents some 350 corporate titans that include banks, law firms and major corporations.
The Wisconsin native said that she will leave her post next June once a 12-month recruitment process has been completed by top New York headhunting firm Heidrick & Struggles.
“I’m 79 going on 80. So it’s time to pass the baton to the next generation,” Wylde said. “They want somebody who loves New York City and who understands both the public and private size of the city’s power structure.”
Wylde, whose husband lives in Puerto Rico, said she would not be “going out to pasture” and planned to remain engaged in the challenges faced by the city.
“I will be writing op-eds that drive everybody crazy,” the sometime Post contributor said. “I will be able to say anything I want!”
Looking back on her long years of service, Wylde singled out the building of 40,000 units of home ownership housing across the five boroughs between 1983 and 1985 as her “biggest personal accomplishment.”
More recently, as the city emerged from the coronavirus pandemic, she issued a rallying cry in the pages of The Post to launch the “We Love NYC” campaign, urging businesses and locals in the city to step up and “take it back from the brink.”
She ripped then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo over plans to hike taxes on New York’s wealthy in her March 2021 op-ed.
“Ultimately, these new taxes may trigger a major loss of economic activity and revenues as companies are pressured to relocate operations,” the missive to the now-prospective Democratic candidate for mayor said.
Wylde’s prediction came to pass. An estimated 125,000 uber-rich New York fled for Florida, leading to the loss of some $14 billion in income, according to a Citizen Budget Commission report this month.
“There’s been a significant out-migration of high earners and we’ve lost their tax revenues, but the biggest danger is the migration of jobs,” she told The Post on Thursday..
Despite rubbing shoulders with the powerful movers and shakers of New York’s business and political world, Wylde still lives in her one-bedroom condo in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.
Respected by Republicans and Democrats alike, the George W Bush administration labeled her post-9/11 blueprint for Lower Manhattan “the Bible” of its early response to the 2001 terror attacks.
She has also helped behind the scenes to bring in congestion pricing to New York City and reportedly quietly lobbied the Trump administration to walk back its vow to entirely scrap the controversial tolls.
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