My friend's company is an LLC. She lives in Westchester County and sees her clients in her home office. Her accountant told her that she has to pay the NYS commuter tax even though her entire commute is simply to walk downstairs to her basement home office. Can that be true? A tax for commuting downstairs in your own home? If it's true, can you please explain the rationale for that sort of taxation? Thank you.

Yes it appears true. See here for more about the socalled (Metropolitan Commuter Transportation Mobility Tax (MCTMT).

The main thing your friend falls under is:

Business activity is carried on inside the MCTD if an individual has, maintains, operates, or occupies desk space, an office, a shop, a store, a warehouse, a factory, an agency, or other place located in the MCTD where his or her business matters are systematically and regularly carried on.

Which is interesting, I wonder if people that telecommute fall under this tax.

She pays the tax because even if she does not commute, her clients might use public transit

The tax is not based on whether you commute; it is based on the location where you work. This was the method by which the MTA could limit fare increases. Otherwise, a subway ride which was $2 would not have only risen to $2.25 but would have gone up more. Therefore people who don't even use the MTA are the ones paying for it.

tripleB said:Problem: Taxes in NY are too high and unfair.
Solution: Move out of NY.
Or just don't work in NY, and enjoy their public benefits while lazing about. Someone has to work and pay taxes, but it doesn't have to be you!

NYS MTA is the worst of the worst scumbags on earth. They dont have to open their books to the public and make up their property taxes/values as it would fit them.

cestmoi123 said:
The bigger issue is the huge degree to which downstate subsidizes upstate, but that's a separate concern.

Welcome to democracy! Please enjoy your stay

tripleB said:Problem: Taxes in NY are too high and unfair.
Solution: Move out of NY.What if your after tax income is also higher?

nycll said:I really think the subway fare is high is due to over generous MTA contracts. Do you know how packed the 4 & 5 lines are in the morning? Any uninformed business man would have thought MTA is a huge money minting machine, until he learns the MTA workers can retire at 55 (is it still true?).It was an absolutely enormous expense to dig a tunnel through the bedrock from Grand Central to Bowling Green, but that was done a century ago. A crowded 4 or 5, holding about 1000 commuters, charges fares of $2250 to run that route, or maybe, say, $1800 after discounts, is an enormous profit over that train's crew and maintenance costs, plus its fair share of track and station costs, or at least it would be on any reasonable salary levels. Keeping stations open at the system's periphery at odd hours is a big money loser. MTA could make up for that if, like other decent-sized systems, it charged distance-based fares, but it doesn't. So the system overall may have only a moderate loss, but that doesn't mean there aren't huge subsidies for parts of it.