New York will make out-of-state volunteer medical workers pay state income tax

Health care workers who traveled from out of state to help with the COVID-19 outbreak in New York on a volunteer basis will have to pay New York state income taxes, according to WPIX-TV.

New York officials asked for additional help from across the country as the coronavirus spread more rapidly in New York City than anywhere else in the U.S.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said that without additional financial assistance from the federal government, New York will not be able to give those volunteer workers any kind of tax break.

"We're not in a position to provide any subsidies right now because we have a $13 billion deficit," Cuomo said, according to WPIX. "So there's a lot of good things I'd like to do, and if we get federal funding, we can do, but it would be irresponsible for me to sit here looking at a $13 billion deficit and say, I'm gonna spend more money, when I can't even pay the essential services.

"If we don't get more money from Washington, we can't fund schools, right, so at the rate we want to fund them. We are in dire financial need," Cuomo said.

New York state law stipulates that if a person works in the state of New York for more than 14 days, they have to pay state income tax. This includes the thousands of emergency workers who came to New York at the request of Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. These are workers who, in many cases, are still being paid in their home states and allowed by their employers to volunteer in New York.

Cuomo and de Blasio have attacked President Donald Trump for not sending aid money to the state. Trump has said he doesn't think it's fair for Republicans to have to bail out Democratic states.