A trio of New York City homeowners have filed a lawsuit to delay the implementation of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s pied-à-terre tax.
The tax is designed to target the owners of luxury second homes – condominiums and co-ops valued at a minimum of $1 million and one- to three-family homes valued above $5 million. The tax appeal process initially had an Aug. 21 deadline, which was extended to Sept. 18 after the brouhaha when the Mamdani administration published a searchable database of the addresses and names of property owners with homes valued at over $1 million. This database encompassed over 960,000 entries, and many households publicly complained they did not have second homes.
The Wall Street Journal reports plaintiffs in the 23-page lawsuit – Rachel O’Brien, Carmine Morano and Simon Hedley – said they were wrongly included in the database and are now in a beat-the-clock race to prove to the city they do not deserve to be taxed.
The lawsuit does not seek to block the tax. Instead, it seeks to delay the tax rollout, force the city to redo the process, annul the tax roll of 960,000 properties cited in the database, and void the pied-à-terre tax warning letters that have been mailed.
The plaintiffs claimed the city’s Department of Finance failed to enact due diligence in identifying the owners of luxury pieds-à-terre. Instead, the lawsuit stated the city illegally forced property owners to prove that they don’t owe the tax rather verify that for themselves.
Under New York State law, the Department of Finance is supposed to make an “initial determination” of who is subject to the tax “based on information available.” The lawsuit said the city rushed the process and “homeowners in an untenable position in the dead of summer” to prove they are not supposed to be taxed.
“The rollout of this surcharge is a debacle,” said Randy Mastro, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. “It tried to switch the burden to New York City homeowners to prove they live here.”
This is a huge issue for me. In this country there is a presumption of innocence until proven guilty.
It seems to me that the same should hold true in assessing new fees. In San Diego we have a rental tax . The city of San Diego sends a notice out and if your mailing address is not the property address you are PRESUMED to be using the property as a rental.
The notice gives you a chance to prove or state that this is your personal property but many people dismiss this (think old and property is paid for). They then lien the property and add late fees and year after year fees. This absolutely is something in my retirement that I intend to get abolished. It’s wrong! Is just plain wrong.
I felt the same as you. It seems with government entities one is guilty until you can prove you’re innocent. But only if someone will actually look at your documentation. Can you say “IRS?” I love our country. Some way we have got to do better from the local level to the national level. This is not new. It’s happened under all administrations.
The Democrats are communists. Watching old guard Democrats like Bill Maher and Alan Dershowitz wring thrust hands is to little too late. The entire Democrat party is treasonous filth. America has to deal with this evil and it’s going to get worse. Americans are in the third existential crisis in our history and 2 of them are with the Democrat party. We must destroy the Democrat party again.
Just because one is presumed innocent until proven guilty does not mean one is free from having to go through the process to prove that they are not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. It is the same here, one has to go through the process to prove they are not liable for this tax. If the San Diego Rental Law is like the LA Law, it is hardly an onerous burden to prove one is or is not using a property that is not the official mailing address of record as a rental. This New York Law is not really the same thing, dealing with second homes and not rentals, but it does sound like they have a process they are trying to implement to make it effective. And despite what “We the Plutolatrists” keeps going on about, it’s a fair idea, provided they can implement it fairly. As long as the people initiating the lawsuit have as their goal keeping the government honest and making the process fair, more power to them.
Hey genius, Plutolatrists is not a word. I must assume you are a Democrat and feel entitled to stealing money from other people, which is communism, socialism and fascism. Please, stay in your blue state and enjoy your misery.