This week, democratic socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced, with Governor Kathy Hochul, that New York would impose a pied-à-terre tax. While the playful French phrase implies a small dwelling, it’s a misnomer in this case, since the tax only applies to houses, condominiums, and apartments valued at more than $5 million and owned by people whose primary residence is outside of New York City.
The announcement is a real victory for the socialist left and would never have happened without its tireless organizing to elect Mamdani, nor would it have happened without the campaign to “tax the rich,” which has continued since he’s been in office, as New Yorkers have rallied, lobbied, and relentlessly dogged the governor at public events. At the same time, the socialist movement is rightly viewing the new tax as a beginning rather than an end of a longer project of redistributing the city’s staggeringly unequal wealth and of building a New York where everyone can thrive.
“The governor understands that there is an organized base and an organized majority in New York City that wants to make millionaires and corporations pay what they owe,” said Gustavo Gordillo of NYC-DSA in an interview with Jacobin this week.
The move makes political sense for both Mamdani and Hochul. Taxing the rich is a broadly popular policy, and few sympathize with bloated plutocrats who hoard real estate but don’t even live in NYC. In Mamdani’s remarks on the new policy, he called out hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin’s $238 million townhouse and emphasized the importance of taxing “the ultrawealthy and global elites” to make the city more affordable for the “working New Yorkers being priced out.” Even Kathy Hochul, a millionaire whose base is other millionaires and billionaires, knows that the governor of New York doesn’t need to curry favor with Russian oligarchs — or Ken Griffin.
They have not disclosed the rate of taxation, but Hochul and…
Auteur: Liza Featherstone
