Gov. Kathy Hochul’s campaign accused Republican challenger Bruce Blakeman Friday of sending “fake government documents” after the Blakeman campaign mailed an official-looking tax-assessment memo to voters.
While the letter reportedly identified itself as “not official government business,” it appears to notify voters they would owe New York’s new tax on second homes in the city valued at $5 million or more.
“According to our records, you own a secondary property that has been identified as subject to Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s pied-à-terre tax,” the Blakeman campaign letter reads. See the letter below.
Obtained by NBC New York
A spokesperson for the Nassau County executive — who is trailing Hochul in recent polls — did not say what “records” the Blakeman campaign was using as a basis for the statement, nor how they were in a position to know which owners the city has identified as owing it.
But according to one source who shared the campaign letter — sent to a Brooklyn voter who claimed not to have a second home at all — the letter was causing additional confusion after a sloppy rollout by the Mamdani administration.
“Kathy Hochul and Zohran Mamdani owe New Yorkers a tremendous apology—for making New York even more unaffordable with another tax and then botching its rollout so badly that they published the wrong addresses on the city’s official website,” a Blakeman campaign spokesperson said.
Blakeman has repeatedly tied Hochul and her policies to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Hochul has said she was only involved in passing the pied-à-terre tax, not in its recent rollout, which was managed by the Mamdani administration.
The mayor has acknowledged that many of the 17,000 property owners were initially targeted in error by letters from the Department of Finance.
In a statement, Hochul Campaign Spokesperson Ryan Radulovacki said Blakeman has “stooped to sending out fake government tax documents to shake New Yorkers down for donations to his Trump lovefest campaign.”
The letter obtained by News 4 does not specify that Blakeman has no role in collecting or managing the pied-à-terre tax. It does say “Paid for by Blakeman for New York” at the bottom.
The Mamdani administration faced criticism for its rollout of the pied-à-terre tax when it released its yearly tax roll, with names and addresses of 950,000 New York City homeowners who may be eligible for the surcharge.
The city initially notified roughly 17,000 homeowners that they could be subject to the tax and would have to initiate an appeal to prove otherwise.
The mayor announced an extension for those appeals, but a Staten Island judge placed the rollout on hold in August after several property owners challenged the rollout, claiming the Mamdani administration had not followed the implementation process laid out in the law.
The case is still pending.
The new tax is projected to generate about $500 million annually for the city, according to the mayor’s office.