{"id":800915,"date":"2026-05-16T16:14:29","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T16:14:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/800915\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T16:14:29","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T16:14:29","slug":"hochul-mamdani-pied-a-terre-folly-shows-it-never-stops-at-tax-the-rich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/800915\/","title":{"rendered":"Hochul-Mamdani pied-\u00e0-terre folly shows it never stops at \u2018tax the rich\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Don\u2019t say we didn\u2019t warn you: \u201cTax the rich\u201d always moves past \u201cthe rich\u201d real fast.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s happening with Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s new pied-\u00e0-terre tax<\/a> before they\u2019ve even figured out how to make it work (if they even can).<\/p>\n

They announced it as a surtax on 13,000 uber-wealthy nonresident NYC owners of second homes worth $5 million or more.<\/p>\n

Weeks later, Hochul\u2019s office on Thursday suddenly \u201cexplained\u201d <\/a>that this actually means it could hit condos and co-ops with assessed values starting at just $1 million\u00a0\u2014 far below what lots of units close for when sold.<\/p>\n

The dynamic duo<\/a> is only certain the scheme will bring in $500 million a year for the city; indeed, everything else about how the tax is to work seems reverse-engineered from that figure.<\/p>\n

Now Hochul says it\u2019ll hit only 10,000 such homes, though it\u2019s hard to see how she can know that. <\/p>\n

\t\t\tMore From\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPost Editorial Board<\/p>\n

Also: The cutoff will be based not on market value, but on the properties\u2019 current assessed values \u2014 numbers that nobody thinks have much to do with any reality.<\/p>\n

Though the plan is also for a total restructuring of the city assessment system, which is so politically fraught that no one\u2019s dared to do it for decades.<\/p>\n

The gov and mayor plainly thought up the headline for this tax, and are still struggling to fill everything else about it. <\/p>\n

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Yet it seems to be headed to a citywide assessment of all one- to three-family homes, co-ops, and condos at their full market value, which would mean hefty tax hikes for a lot of modest earners entirely separate from the pied-\u00e0-terre.<\/p>\n

Heck, at a $1 million cutoff, the surtax seems primed to hit plenty of one-bedrooms and even studios in the pricier parts of town \u2014 not exactly the Russian oligarchs and so it supposedly targets.<\/p>\n

This is the perfect example of how \u201ctaxing the rich\u201d never stops there. <\/p>\n

How many middle-class homeowners across the boroughs will suddenly find their longtime family abodes suddenly being taxed as multimillion-dollar dachas?<\/p>\n

Way to make even more middle- and working-class New Yorkers abandon the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And this, from a pair who insist they\u2019re championing \u201caffordability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s seizing on New Yorkers dreams as a chance to play Freddy Krueger in a new \u201cNightmare on Elm Street.\u201d<\/p>\n

Can you feel \u201cthe warm embrace of collectivism\u201d now?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t say we didn\u2019t warn you: \u201cTax the rich\u201d always moves past \u201cthe rich\u201d real fast. It\u2019s happening…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":800916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,4691,5371,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,1269,9423,618,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,39547,5301],"class_list":{"0":"post-800915","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-editorial","10":"tag-kathy-hochul","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkcity","15":"tag-ny","16":"tag-nyc","17":"tag-opinion","18":"tag-property-taxes","19":"tag-taxes","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-united-states-of-america","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-usa","26":"tag-wealthy","27":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116585147405651375","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=800915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/800916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=800915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=800915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=800915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}