By Leah Robinson, Amy Nogid and Douglas Upton (May 22, 2018, 3:19 PM EDT) -- The New York State Department of Taxation and Finance just released for comment a draft bill to enact a new unincorporated business tax, or UBT. The department's stated purpose for the new UBT is to provide relief to individual New York state taxpayers who would be subject to the new federal $10,000 state tax deduction limitation, part of the federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. While that is a laudable goal, the proposal as currently drafted appears to generate substantially more revenue for the state — at the expense of partnerships doing business in New York — than the benefit to individual partners would seem to justify. In other words, enactment of the proposed UBT appears to be a revenue raiser and a substantial one at that. If the goal of the state's UBT proposal is to provide the same type of relief as it provided to wage earners via its recently enacted voluntary employer payroll tax, then the state's UBT should likewise allow companies to opt in rather than be mandatory....