Judge Gives Mamdani’s Pied-à-Terre Tax-the-Rich Plan a New Lease on Life

A New York appeals court handed Mayor Zohran Mamdani a victory in his quest to tax the rich Wednesday afternoon, reversing a Staten Island judge’s order that would have required the city to restart its pied-à-terre tax program from scratch.New York State Supreme Court Justices Mark C. Dillon, Francesca E. Connolly, Deborah A. Dowling, and Phillip Hom were unanimous in their decision, holding that the homeowners challenging the city’s rollout of the tax had not faced any real harm from it.The homeowners, who launched the case as a trio and later added additional members to their ranks, had called for the city to scrap the surcharge and start again, this time without publishing a downloadable, easily searchable roster of over 900,000 Big Apple residences along with owners’ names and market values. “The publication of the supplemental roll did not cause the petitioners any concrete or definable injury,” the panel found, later adding that “likewise, the petitioners’ privacy concerns are insufficient” and did not provide them standing to sue. The homeowners’ attorney, former Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro, called the city’s actions “unconscionable” in a statement, accusing the Mamdani administration of “trying to ensnare thousands of people who don’t owe this surcharge into having to prove they live in their own homes or else have to pay it.” “But now, this lawless and chaotic data collection scheme will go unremedied,” he said.The homeowners had argued that the size of the list was unnecessary when the tax was never supposed to cover more than a fraction of those homes, and that the city had unfairly tasked them with proving their homes weren’t vacation properties, instead of using its own resources to do that. Richmond County Supreme Court Justice Wayne M. Ozzi agreed on both counts back in September, characterizing the property rolls posted by the city’s Department of Finance last July as “doxxing” in his decision, now overturned.Even if the homeowners’ details were out in the world — something that is virtually always true, the appeals court panel noted Wednesday, citing the Department of Finance’s annual property assessment rolls — no harm has befallen the homeowners because of it.“These public and published assessments contain much of the same information as the supplemental roll at the heart of this appeal, undercutting the claim that the supplemental roll causes any particularized, concrete harm to the petitioners,” the panel wrote.The appellate judges were similarly unsympathetic to the homeowner’s claims that proving their residence had cost them time, money, and stress.“All taxpayers incur time, effort, and costs in determining and complying with their various tax obligations,” the appeals panel wrote. “In any event, the petitioners have not documented and quantified any actual costs incurred.”New York City residents who received non-primary residence surcharge notices had until October 13 to seek an exemption, after the deadline was pushed back multiple times amid public outcry. For those property owners who failed to prove their addresses are someone’s full-time residence, the pied-à-terre tax starts at $40,000. While the extra property tax is supposed to apply uniformly to luxury properties worth more than $5 million, back in August, The New York Sun found several property listings priced above that amount that escaped the surcharge due to New York City’s antiquated valuation system.While the local homeowners may have lost, Mr. Mastro has another case pending that assails the second home surcharge as unconstitutional. Casino mogul Steve Wynn and former Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross have lodged a similar suit.“It’s a shame that, after the City admittedly botched the rollout of this surcharge, the court today took the procedural offramp of standing to avoid addressing the merits of this case,” Mr. Mastro said. “To be clear, though, the ultimate day of reckoning for this ‘pied-a-terre’ surcharge will occur next month when its constitutionality will be decided,” he continued. “We remain confident we will prevail and put an end to this unconstitutional surcharge altogether.”

Judge Gives Mamdani’s Pied-à-Terre Tax-the-Rich Plan a New Lease on Life

Judge Gives Mamdani’s Pied-à-Terre Tax-the-Rich Plan a New Lease on Life

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