The mayor of New York City, commie Mamdani, is trying to raise more money to pay for his socialism.
One scheme is to punish owners of a second home by imposing a so-called “pied-à-terre tax,” a tax on the second residence of wealthy New Yorkers above and beyond regular property taxes.
Now, the assumption that anybody with a second home, or an expensive second home in an expensive property market, must be rolling in liquid funds is faulty. The notion that if you have more wealth than somebody else it should be taken from you? Also faulty.
The new tax bill is going to many New Yorkers with only one home. And the website set up (speaking loosely) to permit challenges of the designation of one’s home as a pied-à-terre is proving nightmarish
One recipient of an extra-tax bill, for $43,000, is Karen Young, who has lived in her brownstone with her husband for thirty years. Two minutes of research would have prevented the mistake, she observes. “Is this a witch hunt?”
New assaults on our rights often have two parts. One part is really horrific. The other part is even more horrific in some other way. The greedy government may eventually withdraw or correct the even more horrific form of the assault; at which point everybody is relieved . . . except anyone noticing that the first form, also horrific, and serving as precedent, is still ongoing.
Was that the game plan here?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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2 replies on “Two Horrors Don’t Make It Right”
From the offset, Mamdani has sought to harness the political system to bring ruin to the financial capital of West. Doing so now, when financial intermediation is highly computerized and can be relocated relatively swiftly, won’t be nearly as costly to the West as once it might have been. But, still, the effects on Western and anti-Western morale will be very pronounced, in opposite directions.
Our cities have millions of Useful Idiots, and use is being made of them.
How could Mamdani impose such a tax on anyone who owns a second home anywhere? Even if it was in Westchester, it is none of his business, since Westchester is outside his domain. It amounts to double taxation since the Youngs, even if they owned two or more homes in NYC, would be denied equal treatment under the law.