Nearly a week after New York City tax officials released information on who could potentially be on the hook for a new \u200apied-\u00e0-terre tax, attorneys and homeowners said they were baffled by the process overseen by Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s administration.<\/p>\n
At the center of the confusion was a database<\/a> posted by the Department of Finance on Friday of more than 900,000 properties that \u201cmay\u201d be subject to the new surcharge \u2014 causing some to believe their homes were mistakenly subject to the tax. A City Hall official clarified Wednesday the city had sent out letters to only 17,000 addresses it suspects are second homes worth more than $5 million.<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aWe are being inundated with calls and emails from owners of co-op and condo apartments and townhouses who got the Department of Finance’s notice,\u201d said Ben Williams, who leads the property tax department at Rosenberg & Estis. \u201c\u200aI don’t know why they did it like this.\u201d<\/p>\n Michael LaPayower was among the homeowners whose residence appeared on the database. He said he\u2019s lived in his Staten Island home since 2011 and that his wife and mother-in-law lived there before that. He said he was \u201castonished\u201d to find his name on the list of properties that could potentially be subject to the tax.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy are we being targeted?\u201d said LaPayower, 45. \u201cWhy are we on this list when I thought the requirements were for people that don’t primarily live in New York?\u201d<\/p>\n Mamdani\u2019s critics seized on the confusion as an example of an unnecessarily adversarial approach to property owners. In February, Mamdani threatened to raise taxes on property owners<\/a> to help plug a multibillion-dollar budget gap. He backed off the proposal after the measure received little political support.<\/p>\n \u201cThis was in poor form as publishing names\/addresses singles out people who have done nothing wrong, at a moment when the far extremes of the political spectrum already treat success itself as something to be punished,\u201d said Steve Fulop, the president of the Partnership for New York City.<\/p>\n Mamdani defended the process during an unrelated press conference on Wednesday.<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aWe are committed to ensuring that this is a tax only levied upon those whose second homes are worth more than $5 million,\u201d Mamdani said. \u201cAnd the reason that we wanted to conduct outreach months in advance of when the tax would be levied would be to ensure that that exact premise would be fulfilled.\u201d<\/p>\n