Lavish Second Home Owners Could Be Hit By NYC Pied-A-Terre Tax

NEW YORK, NY — A new tax that targets people who buy lavish second homes in the city is being proposed by two councilmembers.

Mark Levine, who represents parts of the Upper West Side, Harlem and Washington Heights and Margaret Chin who represents parts of Chinatown, the Lower East Side and Lower Manhattan, will introduce a resolution in support of the so-called pied-a-terre tax on Thursday, the legislators said.

State Senator Brad Hoylman and State Assemblymember Deborah Glick have been fighting for a pied-a-terre tax in the state legislature since 2014. Levine and Chin's resolution wouldn't put the tax into law, but would instead signal the city's willingness to support such a tax if passed by the state.

"1000s of absentee owners of ultra-luxury apartments in NYC are paying zero in local income tax. It's time they do their part," Levine wrote in a statement posted to social meida.

Chin also endorsed the resolution on Twitter, writing: "Millionaires who purchase second, third, or even fourth-homes should not escape paying their fair share."

Hoylman's proposal in the Senate would place a yearly tax on homes worth more than $5 million that are not the owner's primary residence, the New York Times reported earlier this month. The bill would create a sliding scale in which homes worth more would result in greater fees and tax surcharges to owners — with a maximum $370,000 fee and a 4 percent surcharge for homes worth more than $25 million.

The renewed effort in a push for a pied-a-terre tax can be traced to the January purchase of a $238 million penthouse in the 220 Central Park South development by hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin. Griffin is planning to use the home — which broke sales records for the most expensive ever sold in the United States — when he's in the city for business. Otherwise, he's based in Chicago.

City Comptroller Scott Stringer estimated that a pied-a-terre tax such as the one Hoylman is proposing could bring in at least $650 million each year for the city, the Times reported.

"For us, $650 million a year is a lot of money to deal with things such as our subway crisis," Stringer told the Times in an interview, "but it’s a rounding error for the people who own these expensive part-time apartments."