Its more than Bank of America

Bank of America announced this week that it will cease Tax Processing operations on behalf of NY State Department of Taxation and Finance in Ulster County's Town of Ulster TechCity complex. Seasonally, this means about 1500 jobs lost. Two thirds of these employees look at tax processing as a second income paying for things like vacation, college for their kids and even for a loved one who is out of work. The other third or about 500 use the tax processing job as their sole means of income. All of the workers are contracted to Bank of America through Manpower, Inc. Manpower will lose this business which will also mean less full timers at Manpower.

Just like any large employer there are ripple effects in the community with businesses who rely on the large employment. In this case its not just the local restaurants and deli's but also larger employers too, like Walmart. Another employer that will see a drop off in activity will the US Postal Service in Kingston. On a typical day during the tax season they get between 80,000 to 200,000 pieces of mail [tax returns] which then get sent in bulk to the TechCity site. Its unknown how many employees within the local postal unit will be effected by BoA's departure. Given that nearly all the jobs are considered seasonal the WARN team [NY State Dept of Labor] was not activated. It really should come as no surprise that Bank of America is pulling out. Online processing has been the wave of the future the past several years. What is surprising is that their two other locations - one in the Capital District and the other in Binghamton - will still be in operation.

Read the quotes from Bank of America spokesmen and you'll see that Bank of America is cutting New York State Department of Taxation and Finance as a client. Bank of America has yet to notify the City of NY for its personal returns. There is no word on Bank of America's decision to continue or cease its processing operation of sales tax returns which is also handled at the Tech City location.