New York mayor says second-home levy plan is key step to tax the rich

[NEW YORK] New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani hailed a proposed annual surcharge on some owners of second homes in the city as an important step in his pledge to raise taxes on the wealthy.

“I always said that I believed in the importance of taxing the rich,” Mamdani said on Sunday (Apr 19). “This is taxing the rich.”

Mamdani and New York Governor Kathy Hochul have said that they are converging on a “pied-a-terre tax” to slap owners of second homes in the city worth more than US$5 million with an annual surcharge on top of property taxes. She has said the tax would cover about 13,000 properties.

“That is an agreement that we have to tax the wealthy,” even though personal income tax and corporate tax are the “most straightforward” ways to increase levies on the rich, Mamdani said.

Asked whether he was still pursuing a push for broader taxes on the wealthy, Mamdani called the pied-a-terre levy “an incredible step” that points to “different kind of path” as he faces a projected US$5.4 billion two-year gap in the city’s budget.

“I think the final part of this budget process is to ensure that we are balancing the budget at zero,” he added.

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Mamdani is framing the tax drive as a way to increase affordability and improve services for average New Yorkers, while portraying wealthy owners of second residences that are often unoccupied as benefiting from the city’s services without paying an appropriate share.

He again called out Citadel founder Ken Griffin’s purchase of a penthouse apartment on Central Park South for US$238 million in 2019, which set a US record at the time.

“This is the kind of real estate activity that’s happening in this city, homes that are largely empty for much of the year, but it all occurs while New Yorkers are hurting in this same city,” said Mamdani. BLOOMBERG