Zohran Mamdani at the Resist Fascism Rally in Bryant Park on Oct 27th 2024 by Bingjiefu He is licensed under CC Intl 4.0
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s new tax on second homes was sold as a way to squeeze more money out of the ultra-wealthy. Instead, thousands of New Yorkers have been forced to prove to the city that they actually live in their own homes.
The new pied-à-terre tax was approved as part of New York’s state budget in May after being pushed by Mamdani and Gov. Kathy Hochul. The annual surcharge targets New York City properties that are not used as primary residences.
For the first two years, one, two, and three family homes valued by the Department of Finance at more than $5 million can be subject to the tax, while condos and co-ops face a $1 million threshold.
The pied-à-terre tax is only one piece of Mamdani’s broader tax agenda. He has pushed for higher income and property taxes and backed a 50% Death Tax that would reach New Yorkers with as little as $750,000 in assets. New Yorkers have seen this playbook before. As ATR previously documented, the state’s “mansion tax” was sold as a tax on the wealthy, but its $1 million threshold was never indexed for inflation and now reaches ordinary homes across New York City.
The rollout has quickly become a mess.
In July, the Department of Finance mailed notices to roughly 17,000 property owners warning that their properties may be subject to the tax. That is thousands more than the roughly 10,000 properties officials initially estimated would ultimately be subject to it.
Many recipients say their properties are not second homes at all.
Rather than first making an individualized determination that each property was a non-primary residence, the city required homeowners who received notices to apply for an exemption and provide documentation showing the property was their primary residence. That approach is now at the center of the legal challenge.
A group of homeowners sued the city in State Supreme Court in Staten Island, arguing that the Department of Finance improperly shifted its responsibility for identifying pied-à-terre properties onto homeowners.
On August 10, Justice Wayne Ozzi issued a temporary restraining order blocking parts of the rollout. But the city appealed, triggering a stay, and an appellate judge subsequently allowed implementation to continue while the lawsuit proceeds.
The backlash has spread to City Hall as well. At an August 18 City Council hearing, members from both parties criticized the administration’s handling of the tax. Council members came armed with 11 pages of questions, but Mamdani administration officials declined to appear in person, citing the pending litigation.
Mamdani spun this reckless tax as attacking the “wealthy.” Its first weeks have instead produced 17,000 notices, thousands of exemption requests, more than 2,300 exemptions, and an ongoing lawsuit over the city’s implementation.
New Yorkers already face one of the highest tax burdens in the country. Mamdani and Hochul added another tax to the pile, and now residents who may not even owe it are being forced to navigate a new bureaucracy just to prove it. Beyond the fiscal damage, publicly naming and sharing the addresses of New Yorkers targeted by the tax has created additional privacy and security concerns.