(Bloomberg) -- New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority is planning, come January, its first dip into a new source of funding: borrowing against future mansion tax revenue.
The largest mass-transit system in the US is looking to sell $1.3 billion of debt repaid with real estate transfer tax receipts in the week of Jan. 6, according to a posting for upcoming transactions on the MTA’s website. Siebert Williams Shank & Co. will lead the bond sale while Goldman Sachs is the co-book-running senior manager.
The so-called mansion tax is a supplemental levy on the transfer of residential properties of at least $2 million. The state began directing the revenue to the MTA in 2019 to help pay for infrastructure upgrades. The revenue goes into MTA’s capital lockbox rather than its operating budget as the funds are designated for infrastructure improvements and not day-to-day expenses. Funds will go toward the agency’s 2020 to 2024 capital budget.
The MTA’s new bond sale comes as the transit provider is set to implement a first-of-its-kind congestion pricing plan on Jan. 5. The still-disputed initiative will charge most motorists $9 to drive into a tolled zone, which runs south of 60th Street in Manhattan. The goal is to reduce traffic and raise new revenue to modernize a more than 100-year-old transit system.
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