In the fight for taxes on the rich, Kathy Hochul just blinked.
Earlier this week, the Governor conceded to a tax on second homes in New York City worth over $5 million. The tax is a yearly surcharge on luxury residences in New York City — multimillion-dollar apartments that the wealthy collect and let sit vacant for most of the year. The tax is expected to raise around $500 million every year.
Not so long ago, Governor Hochul said she’d never consider taxes on the rich. While she loves to pretend that she cannot be influenced by her constituents’ demands, we know this isn’t true. Our movement, which recently elected Mayor Zohran Mamdani on a platform of taxing the rich to fund the affordability agenda, and which continues to grow with thousands of people talking to their neighbors, lobbying their legislators, and rallying across the state to tax the rich, has real power.
This is a big step forward. But we can win more.
Our city is still facing a $5.4 billion budget deficit. If it isn’t filled, this could mean devastating cuts to critical services. At $500 million in projected revenue raised, the pied-à-terre tax only accounts for one-tenth of what we need to fill that hole, and even less than what is needed to fulfill the full affordability agenda.
It’s a step in the right direction, but we aren’t done pressuring the governor to do more.
Donald Trump’s cuts are coming for New York. As a result of the One Big Beautiful Bill, New York’s millionaires will be $12 billion richer — while 450,000 people will lose their Essential Plan health coverage, and 300,000 households will lose Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. Working-class New Yorkers will get hungrier and sicker, while the rich hoard more wealth they don’t need.
These cuts, alongside New York’s well-documented affordability crisis, have put working families in our state on the back foot. The pied-à-terre tax, while raising money from some of the most obscene…
Auteur: Arielle Swernoff
