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Mamdani threatens 9.5% property tax increase if wealth tax is not passed
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has proposed a significant property tax increase. This measure is a last resort if Governor Kathy Hochul does not agree to raise income taxes on wealthy individuals. The proposed hike could impact millions of homes and businesses. Mamdani aims to address a substantial budget deficit. Negotiations with the City Council are ongoing.
NEW YORK: Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday proposed to raise property tax rates in New York City by nearly 10%, a measure he is preparing as a "last resort" to be deployed if he cannot persuade Gov. Kathy Hochul to raise income taxes on the wealthy.
The suggested 9.5% increase would affect more than 3 million single-family homes, co-ops and condos, and more than 100,000 commercial buildings, Mamdani said as he delivered his preliminary spending plan.
The mayor acknowledged that his proposal would not merely force the wealthy to pay more taxes, but would also be a "tax on working- and middle-class New Yorkers," and stressed that this was not his first choice.
But he noted that New York City mayors had little authority to raise taxes without the governor's and Legislature's acquiescence, and said that a city property tax increase -- combined with raiding the city's reserve funds -- was the only way to address a looming budget deficit projected to reach $5.4 billion over two years.
"If we cannot follow this first path," he said, referring to his proposed 2-percentage-point income tax hike on wealthier New Yorkers, "we will be forced onto a much more damaging path of last resort -- one where we have to use the only tools at the city's disposal: raising property taxes and raiding our reserves."
"The second path is painful," he added. "We will continue to work with Albany to avoid it."
If other options surface, Mamdani may yet water down or abandon the proposed tax increase as the June 30 city budget deadline draws closer -- a possibility that Hochul alluded to Tuesday, as she played down the likelihood of city property taxes rising.
"That's their prerogative to look at that as an option," she said, suggesting that cost-cutting measures and updated accounting might make such an increase unnecessary. "He's required to put options on the table; that does not mean that's the final resolution."
The budget plan, Mamdani's first since becoming mayor, totals $127 billion -- a $5 billion increase from the current budget -- and would take effect July 1, following revisions and negotiations with the City Council.
By law, city budgets must be balanced. But the mayor's initial proposal for how to do so seemed less like a last resort and more like an opening foray in a pressure campaign to get Hochul to back his call to raise taxes on those making $1 million or more a year.
In recent weeks, Mamdani has seemed to go out of his way not to antagonize the governor, a pro-business Democrat who is up for reelection this year and with whom the new democratic socialist mayor has forged a warm alliance despite their ideological differences.
The mayor recently endorsed Hochul for reelection and told allies he would most likely skip a "Tax the Rich" rally planned for next week in Albany. And on Tuesday, even as he warned of raising property taxes, Mamdani praised the governor for her ongoing cash advances to New York City, including $1.5 billion announced Monday for a host of city services.
Still, the prospect of a property tax rate increase -- which New Yorkers have not seen since Michael Bloomberg was mayor -- did antagonize others, including the city comptroller, Mark D. Levine, and the council speaker, Julie Menin, who also holds sway in the final city budget.
Menin, a Democrat, said in a statement that she opposed the property tax proposal, but did not recommend a wealth tax increase.
"At a time when New Yorkers are already grappling with an affordability crisis, dipping into rainy day reserves and proposing significant property tax increases should not be on the table whatsoever," she said. "The Council believes there are additional areas of savings and revenue that deserve careful scrutiny before increasing the burden on small property owners and neighborhood small businesses."
New York City's property tax system is both byzantine and opaque, making it difficult to assess the impact of Mamdani's proposed increase.
The Citizens Budget Commission, a nonpartisan think tank, said the suggested rate increase would amount to a property tax increase of about $700 a year for a typical owner of a one-, two- or three-family home.
Andrew Rein, president of that commission, said Mamdani is presenting a "false choice" between income and property tax hikes, and should look for more cuts and savings in the budget.
Mamdani is estimating the tax move would raise an additional $14.8 billion over four years, according to budget documents.
The mayor also proposed raiding the city's reserves, taking $980 million out of the so-called rainy day fund in the current fiscal year, and drawing $229 million down from the city's Retiree Health Benefits Trust for the upcoming fiscal year.
In his campaign for mayor, Mamdani repeatedly called for a wealth tax to help pay for a universal child care system. But in January, the governor and the mayor agreed on a plan to expand a child care expansion without raising taxes.
Now the mayor has shifted the rational for raising taxes on those earning $1 million or more, saying that it was needed to address the budget gap -- which he has blamed on inaccurate number crunching by his predecessor, former Mayor Eric Adams. (Adams has said he left Mamdani with over $8 billion in reserves.)
The mayor said his administration has identified another $1.7 billion in savings to reduce the budget gap, though he was not specific about what those measures would entail.
The City Council must approve city budgets, giving Menin and the 51-member legislative body significant sway over what is likely to be a thorny negotiation process.
Mamdani's most loyal backers echoed the mayor's messaging that the governor should push for a wealth tax.
In a statement, Divya Sundaram, the deputy director of Our Time, a nonprofit dedicated to enacting Mamdani's agenda, did not address the notion of a property tax hike, instead demanding Albany raise taxes on the wealthy. "The money is there," she said. "Governor Hochul only needs to prioritize the lives of working-class New Yorkers over the windfall profits of the billionaire class."
The New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America also framed the mayor's budget proposal as evidence that the governor "must #TaxTheRich."
Landlord groups had a different perspective.
"The mayor has declared war on thousands of immigrant property owners, most of them multigenerational families, who have their entire life's savings invested in their small buildings," said Ann Korchak, board president of Small Property Owners of New York, who said that such an increase, combined with a rent freeze, would crush small owners.
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Source: EconomicTimes
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