The insistence of lawmakers in Albany to extend the sales tax on clothing purchases of less than $110 for another year may bode ill for the scheduled rollback of last year’s “emergency” income tax and sales tax increases that are supposed to sunset next year.

It also puts Mayor Bloomberg in the uncomfortable position of having to break a promise. He had told voters that he would ensure a sales tax on clothing purchases of less than $110 would sunset on time this year. State legislators extended it until May 2005.

“It does raise questions about how seriously the politicians take sun setting of emergency tax measures,” said the chief economist for the Citizens Budget Commission, Marcia Van Wagner. “Once you have a tax in place it is relatively easy not to rescind it. Having a tax not go away is psychologically very different than having one you have to impose.”

A Manhattan Institute budget analyst, E.J. McMahon, agreed. “Frankly, it all boded ill for sunsetting next year when they created the taxes in the first place,” he said. “I’ll be surprised if they expire on time.”

If the analysts predictions are correct, Albany is going to put Mr. Bloomberg in another tight spot just as he is campaigning for re-election next year.

In addition to vowing the clothing tax would roll back this June, he told voters in his January State of the City address that “the personal income tax is going to ‘sunset’ on schedule…. And the sales tax surcharge will also be phased out as promised.”

While President Bush is suggesting a simplification of the tax code in a second term, New York seems to be trending the other way.

The 2003 tax increases made an already complicated tax structure that much more so by adding two new brackets to top of the city’s income tax code.

Income above $500,000 is taxed at 4.45% and incomes starting at $100,000 are taxed at 4.25%. The top rate used to be 3.65%.

“Albany and the City Council don’t have the political will to enact any sort of spending cuts, they have some expensive labor contracts that need to be negotiated, and they still need to work out education spending.” Mr. McMahon said. “The easy way out will be not to sunset on schedule.”

That is bad news for New Yorkers.

Add the state income tax rate to the city’s new totals and New Yorkers with taxable incomes over $500,000 are paying 12.15% in state taxes, ac cording to budget newsletter Fiscal-Watch. Single taxpayers making $100,000 and married couples making $150,000 are paying 11.75%, it said. On top of that, the sales tax is now 8.625%.

“They have a $3.7 billion budget gap in the city and $4 plus billion gap on state level,” said Mr. McMahon. “The solution is going to be to get money from other people so I would expect a big push to pin the sun up in the sky forever on higher tax rates.”