Threat of 9.5% property tax increase puts pressure on Governor Hochul, who is seeking re-election this year
Zohran Mamdani, New York’s democratic socialist mayor, has unveiled two new budget proposals for the city, prompting feedback from those in and out of the state.
Mamdani’s two proposals include either raising taxes on the city’s wealthiest residents – which would require approval from New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul – or a “last resort” measure of a 9.5% property tax increase, which could affect “more than 3 million single-family homes, co-ops and condos and over 100,000 commercial buildings”, according to the New York Times.
“The first path is the most sustainable and fairest: raising taxes on the wealthiest and corporations, and ending the drain by fixing the imbalance between what the City provides the State and what we receive in return,” said Mamdani.
“If we do not go down the first path, the City will be forced to go down a second, more harmful path of property taxes and raiding our reserves – weakening our long-term fiscal footing and placing the onus for resolving this crisis on the backs of working- and middle-class New Yorkers … The second path is painful. We will continue to work with Albany to avoid it.”
