Exclusive | Socialist NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani wants to hike corporate taxes to pay for loads of freebies

Socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani wants to raise corporate taxes to pay for billions of dollars of freebies for New Yorkers, he told The Post in an exclusive sit-down.The Queens state assemblyman, 33, said his plans for his socialist utopia involve subsidizing free transit and childcare with higher taxes on corporations and establishing city-run food stores, freezing rent for millions of New Yorkers and creating a new safety plan for the city.The out-of-nowhere candidate, who has been surging in recent polls, said his campaign has a “relentless focus” on making New York City more affordable through a sizable expansion of government — which he says lies in direct contrast to controversial competitor Andrew Cuomo.“We have a North Star,” said the Astoria pol, referring to his campaign’s economic agenda. “That is all driven by the belief that working-class New Yorkers cannot afford to worry about anything beyond cost, because it’s cost that is pushing them out of the city that they love,” Mamdani said, stating that one in four New Yorkers live in poverty.“Whether it’s the cost of rent, childcare or metro card groceries, New Yorkers are on the brink.”Mamdani, who unabashedly leans to the left, plans to fund his far-left ideas by raising the corporate tax rate to match those of surrounding states.New Jersey, for example, levied an 11.5% tax rate from 2021 to 2023 before dropping back down to 9%, while New York has maintained a 7.25% rate.“If we were to match the gap between that New Jersey tax rate and our own, that would pay for the bulk of this agenda,” Mamdani said.The mayoral candidate was confident that the dramatic jump in tax costs wouldn’t drive companies out of the city.Even if businesses moved their headquarters out of state, they would still be subject to the taxes as long as they continued to do business in the Empire State — where the demand is too high to decline, he said.For further funding of his programs, the...