New Yorkers packed a City Council hearing this week, describing a wave of confusing — and in some cases wildly inaccurate — tax bills that left them scrambling to prove they live in their own homes.
According to a report the New York Post published on Tuesday, August 18, the three-hour oversight hearing centered on the rollout of Mayor Zohran Mamdani‘s new pied-à-terre tax, targeting luxury second homes worth $5 million or more, as well as co-ops and condos valued above $1 million that sit unoccupied.
Per the report, Governor Kathy Hochul distanced herself from the fallout last week, telling reporters, “We’re not responsible for the rollout. We just were their — we are the facilitators.”
Kenneth Fishel, an Upper East Side resident who has since joined a lawsuit against the rollout, said he only learned he’d been wrongly billed by chance. “My apartment number was listed on it, and it said that I didn’t live in that apartment and that I owed $58,000 for non-primary residence tax,” Fishel said, per the report, explaining that a neighbor nearly 30 floors below had received his notice by mistake. “If I hadn’t run into him in the elevator, I never would have known, and I would have been billed for the full tax.”…