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New Yorkers were seething Tuesday after Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration alerted them they’d be on the hook for the state’s new pied-à-terre tax — which was explicitly sold as a levy targeting wealthy owners of luxury second homes.
Longtime residents — some who have called the Big Apple home for decades and own a single abode in the city — told The Post they were shocked to get hit with five-figure tax bills they believe were mistakenly mailed out, and are now being forced to navigate a bureaucratic labyrinth to prove it.
“Whoever’s behind this, who I can only assume is the mayor, didn’t take the 30 seconds to research,” said Karen Young, president and founder of New York and Paris-based beauty marketing company The Young Group, who has lived in New York since 1972.
She was stunned when she received a letter from the city Department of Finance asking for $43,000 in pied-à-terre tax on her West 95th Street brownstone, which she’s lived in with her husband for 30 years.
“Is this a witch hunt?” she asked, exasperated.
“I just sort of line up all of these things and think ‘why are you picking on us?’” Young said.
“As a faithful New Yorker since 1972, I find it not only insulting but painful,” she fumed, “Is anybody paying any attention, or any thinking, or two minutes of research. Just look me up!”
Young said she went to the DOF’s website to attempt to prove her permanent residency — but quickly hit a brick wall.
“It’s a cumbersome process to prove that I’m a primary resident, which just seems absurd. My jury summons come here, I pay my taxes from here, my utilities,” she said.
Despite the department telling her the process to appeal or challenge the bill was as easy as uploading a driver’s license, Young said she was forced to pay her estate lawyer to get the proper documentation after spending three fruitless hours on the website trying to do it herself.
“Apparently they haven’t checked their own website. And I’m tech-savvy!” she insisted.
Once homeowners are notified by mail that the city has determined the tax is applicable to them, they appear to have little recourse to set the record straight if they believe they received the bill erroneously.
The tax is meant to apply to one-to-3 family homes worth at least $5 million and co-ops and condominiums valued at $1 million or more — that are unoccupied, non-primary residences, according to the legislation approved by Albany lawmakers and Gov. Kathy Hochul this spring.
Residents who received a bill but don’t meet those criteria can appeal based on either their residence status or the property’s valuation.
Owners appealing based on residence status have a strict 30-day window from the notification date to submit their rebuttal directly to the DOF.
Those who believe they were incorrectly hit with the tax because the city overestimated the value of their property must file an appeal form with the New York City Tax Commission by March.
Diane Francis, a Canadian journalist, entrepreneur and self-described “part-time New Yorker,” said she previously owned an apartment on the Upper East Side, but sold it and now has a pad on West 57th Street and Eight Avenue that she purchased in 2022.
Despite it being her secondary residence, Francis pointed out that she spends “lots of money” in the Big Apple, including sales and property taxes.
“I think it’s unfair to pick on people, and I don’t know how they’re going to police that … I think it’s very foolish,” she said.
“I pay condo fees, I pay real estate taxes … I go out and eat, I go to the theater, I go to movies, I spend money everywhere, I buy stuff. I mean, I am a profit center,” she said, estimating she spends around three months a year in New York.
“And for them to punish me as though I’m some kind of a problem, when in actual fact I’m not a problem, I’m a benefit to the city, is beneath the intelligence that most New Yorkers have.”
An 81-year-old former Upper East Side and New Jersey resident, who asked her name not be publicized, said she received a letter from the DOF’s Property Division alerting her she’d be subject to a staggering $55,048 pied-à-terre tax on her one home in Manhattan, if she does not go online to prove she lives there full-time.
“We’ve always owned property in one place or another, but only ever owned one property,” she said.
The controversial surcharge — which Mamdani has touted as making good on his campaign promise to “tax the rich” — is little more than a shakedown on longtime residents, she railed.
“I think the city is just trying to find a way to get money, they should be more careful about who is a permanent resident and what a permanent resident is,” she said.
Adding insult to injury, the notice was addressed to her late husband of 53 years, with whom she co-owned the property while he was alive.
“The fact that it’s addressed to my husband, who died six years ago, is outrageous,” she fumed.
“I have lived here for 30 years; it’s my only residence. It’s addressed to my husband, not me,” she said.
“I own this house, the City of New York didn’t get that right.”
The letter instructed her to respond with proof of permanent residency by Aug. 21, warning her she’d be on the hook for the full surcharge amount without being granted an exception.
“The letter is wrong. The city should have checked this out and been more careful,” she said.
“The city shouldn’t just do these things without enough information, maybe they shouldn’t be doing it at all.”
The DOF would not disclose how many notices were sent out, but under the original plan the number was supposed to be limited to 31,000 taxpayers.
Puzzlingly, The Post’s Monday review of a document dump in which the DOF published the names and addresses of property owners who could be hit with the new tax found more than 960,000 residents and residences.
“Anyone who has received a DOF letter is encouraged to inquire or appeal if they believe their property meets the criteria for an exemption,” a department spokesperson said Tuesday, pointing owners to the agency’s website.
Andy Arons, who has lived in the same West Village brownstone with his family for the last 27 years, characterized the tone of the notice he received as “draconian.”
Forcing longtime residents to justify how long they’ve lived in the city has echoes of more repressive regimes, Arons said.
“It feels like a command-and-control type government like Cuba or China. They say, and they are going to come and take it if you don’t comply. There’s a sort of unspoken threat,” he told The Post.
He said the whole episode feels “performative,” or hopping on a trend with the intention of sowing division.
“It’s moving money from people who earned it to people who don’t.”
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