NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF LEGISLATION submitted in accordance with Assembly Rule III, Sec 1(f)
 
BILL NUMBER: A8888
SPONSOR: Cunningham
 
TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the tax law, in relation to requiring medallion agents
to manage payments of the congestion surcharge
 
PURPOSE OF BILL:
To ensure that agents licensed by the Taxi and Limousine Commission are
solely liable for making payments of the MTA improvement zone surcharge
on behalf of medallion owners.
 
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:
Section one amends the tax law to clarify that agents licensed by the
Taxi and Limousine Commission are authorized on behalf of medallion
owners to manage the medallions and/or make payments of the MTA
improve-merit zone surcharge, including in batch format. These agents
would be held solely liable for making these payments absent a good
faith dispute of the amount owed.
Section two relates to the effective date.
 
JUSTIFICATION:
Under congestion pricing, liability for paying the MTA improvement zone.
surcharge has fallen solely on medallion owners without authorizing
agents licensed by the Taxi and Limousine Commission to be liable. Plac-
ing the burden solely on the owners could create some unintended conse-
quences. Since the agents are more involved in the management of these
medallions, whereas some owners may take a more hands-off approach, it
would be more appropriate to assign sole liability to the agents when
they are there. Leaving liability to the owners would be quite onerous
to the agents who would still be charged with filing the surcharge
payments, forcing them to reach out to owners who are often out of
reach. Assigning sole liability to the agents would lower the utility
costs of managing these taxes while also ensuring payment compliance.
 
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
New Bill.
 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS FOR STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS:
To Be Determined.
 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect immediately.
STATE OF NEW YORK
________________________________________________________________________
8888
IN ASSEMBLY
January 26, 2024
___________
Introduced by M. of A. CUNNINGHAM -- read once and referred to the
Committee on Ways and Means
AN ACT to amend the tax law, in relation to requiring medallion agents
to manage payments of the congestion surcharge
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. Subdivision (a) of section 1299-b of the tax law, as
2 amended by section 3 of part R of chapter 59 of the laws of 2021, is
3 amended to read as follows:
4 (a) Notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, any person
5 that dispatches a motor vehicle by any means that provides transporta-
6 tion that is subject to a surcharge imposed by this article, including
7 transportation network companies as defined in article forty-four-B of
8 the vehicle and traffic law, shall be liable for the surcharge imposed
9 by this article, except where agents licensed by the taxi and limousine
10 commission are authorized on behalf of medallion owners to manage the
11 medallions and/or make payments of the surcharge as laid out in article
12 twenty-nine-A of this chapter, such agents are solely liable for making
13 these payments absent a good faith dispute of the amount owed. Where
14 agents licensed by the taxi and limousine commission are authorized on
15 behalf of medallion owners to manage the medallions and/or make payments
16 of the metropolitan transportation authority improvement zone surcharge
17 such agents are entitled to make batch payments of all medallions
18 managed with an accounting of each medallion trip represented in the
19 batch payment, except that in the case of taxicab trips and HAIL vehicle
20 trips that are also subject to tax pursuant to article twenty-nine-A of
21 this chapter:
22 (1) [a] A TSP that collected the trip record and trip fare shall with-
23 hold from daily collections the surcharges due on such trips, and shall
24 withhold from such collections the surcharges due on cash trips. If the
25 TSP's daily collections, after retaining any fees to which it is enti-
26 tled pursuant to a contract with such taxicab owner or HAIL vehicle
27 owner, are insufficient to cover the surcharges due on such cash trips,
28 the TSP shall withhold an amount from subsequent daily collections, to
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD14004-01-4
A. 8888 2
1 the extent funds are available, until all surcharges due for a monthly
2 period have been withheld. If a TSP is unable to withhold all the
3 surcharges due in a monthly period, it shall withhold such unwithheld
4 surcharges from daily collections in the next monthly period. A TSP
5 shall be jointly liable for the surcharge imposed by this article for
6 all trips for which the TSP collected the trip record, but shall be
7 relieved of liability for any surcharges attributable to cash trips for
8 which it was unable to withhold the surcharges because there were insuf-
9 ficient daily collections during twelve successive monthly periods.
10 (2) The TSP shall be responsible for filing monthly returns reporting
11 the surcharges due on all trips for which it collected trip records,
12 shall remit the surcharges withheld on all such trips and shall report
13 any unwithheld surcharges due because of insufficient daily collections
14 to cover the tax due on cash trips. For purposes of this section, the
15 terms "taxicab trips," "HAIL vehicle trips," "taxicab owner," "HAIL
16 base,""TSP" and "cash trip" shall have the same meaning as they do in
17 section twelve hundred eighty of this chapter.
18 § 2. This act shall take effect immediately.