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Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said Wednesday that she hadn\u2019t yet discussed the proposal with other Democrats in her chamber.<\/p>\n
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Hochul proposed the tax two weeks after the April 1 budget deadline, a shift in her previous stance to resist calls for broad tax hikes on wealthy individuals and corporations.<\/p>\n
During a news conference on Wednesday,\u00a0Hochul denied that activists or influential politicians like New York Mayor\u00a0Zohran Mamdani or U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who are both self-described democratic socialists, had influenced her proposal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel no need to appease anyone,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m looking out for the city\u2019s finances.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some Republicans were quick to criticize the proposal. Bruce\u00a0Blakeman, the Nassau County executive and Republican gubernatorial candidate, said the proposal violates the governor’s prior pledge to taxpayers that she would not support increasing levies for high-income earners.<\/p>\n
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Blakeman said Hochul\u2019s pledge had \u201cexpired faster than the families fleeing New York\u2019s affordability crisis.\u201d He characterized the issue as \u201ca war on homeownership and the American dream.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
State Senate Minority Leader Robert Ortt also criticized Hochul.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seems like Kathy\u00a0Hochul is taking budget direction from the DSA-funded billboards outside the Capitol,\u201d Ortt said. \u201cShe\u2019s breaking her commitment not to raise taxes and surrendering the third chair in budget negotiations to Zohran Mamdani and the New York City socialists so they can push for tax hikes statewide.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the Capital Region, state Sen. Pat Fahy views the proposed tax as a sensible way to generate revenue with minimal negative consequences. Fahy drew on her seven-year battle to pass a short-term rental registry bill.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Fahy said that second homes contributed significantly to the housing crisis because high-value properties owned by out-of-state or international investors sit empty most of the year, reducing available housing stock and driving up costs for locals.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Just as\u00a0Airbnbs and short-term rentals \u201cleveled the playing field\u201d for hotels and housing, she sees this tax as a way to address the \u201ccompounding problems\u201d of the housing market.<\/p>\n
While the current proposal focuses on New York City, Fahy is open to a conversation about expanding it upstate, where other cities are facing budget deficits, provided the conversation is guided by data.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fahy said that the impact upstate depends entirely on the chiseled nature of the tax. If the threshold is properties assessed over $5 million, it would likely only affect specific areas with highly valued homes like Saratoga Springs or Lake\u00a0Placid.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Assemblyman John T. McDonald III said that if the state grants New York City the permission to implement this tax, the financial burden falls exclusively on that city’s residents.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Because the tax is localized, a resident in Cohoes is not paying for New York City\u2019s financial challenges, he said. That allows New York City to raise revenue without as adversely impacting taxpayers in other parts of the state.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAt least for the people outside of New York City, it\u2019s a win,\u201d McDonald said. \u201cWe\u2019re not subsidizing New York City\u2019s financial challenges.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gov. Kathy Hochul has proposed a tax on second homes in New York City valued at $5 million.\u00a0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[609,844,9,56,63,65,64,530],"class_list":{"0":"post-198570","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-government","9":"tag-latestnews","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-ny","12":"tag-nyc","13":"tag-nyc-headlines","14":"tag-nyc-news","15":"tag-state"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}