Miami Mayor Francis X. Suarez is touting his city’s financial climate, access to capital markets, and relatively low crime rate to lure Wall Street financial firms away from New York to the seventh largest metropolis in the country, considered the business capital of Latin America.
Appearing on Fox News Channel’s ''Your World'' on Thursday, the 43-year-old Republican said he’s already had success with such firms as Blackstone, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase.
"If you’re looking to headquarter in Miami, to have access to capital and to markets across the world I think that differentiates us really from any city in the United States," he said.
Suarez, the first Miami-born mayor of the city and son of former two-term mayor Xavier Suarez, explained his city’s advantages. He particularly noted the limitations that the 2017 federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act placed on deductions for state and local taxes, or SALT, as well as the relatively harsh restrictions imposed by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio due to the outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19.
''It’s just been an avalanche of people that have been coming from New York, and even Silicon Valley, to the city of Miami,'' Suarez said. ''I think it started with SALT, when you weren’t able to deduct your property taxes, and your city and state income taxes, from your federal income taxes, and it’s continued with COVID, where people now are living more virtually.
''So, people are where they want to be, not where they feel like they have to be, and Miami is winning that battle.''
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