Zohran Mamdani became mayor of New York City and immediately decided rich people who own apartments they don't live in should pay more taxes. The pied-à-terre tax targets exactly this demographic. A court said the tax can keep rolling out while lawyers argue about whether it's legal. That's the headline.
Donald Trump, who built his entire identity around owning buildings in Manhattan he may or may not actually own depending on which valuation serves him best that day, called for the tax to be stopped. He vowed to explore federal options. Federal options for a municipal real estate tax. The Constitution famously gives presidents veto power over property taxes in cities that voted against them.
The beauty of this tax is it only hits people who can afford to keep an entire New York City apartment empty just so they have somewhere to crash when they're in town. If you're living paycheck to paycheck and somehow scraped together a down payment on a studio in Astoria that you actually live in, you're fine. If you're a billionaire with a 4,000-square-foot penthouse you use twice a year, you now subsidize the subway system you'll never ride.
Retail traders are currently Googling whether this affects their Robinhood account. It does not. Nothing affects your Robinhood account except your own terrible decisions and the market makers who see your orders before you do.
The tax continues during the appeal, which means the money gets collected now and maybe refunded later if Trump's federal options turn out to be as real as his healthcare plan. Courts move slowly. Taxes move fast. By the time this gets resolved, Mamdani will have either fixed the subway or spent it all on something equally impossible, and Trump will have forgotten he ever cared because a different mayor will have insulted him on Twitter.
Imagine being so rich you're mad about a tax on a home you don't even sleep in.
Photo by Andy Fluet on Unsplash
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