Lindsay Owens, president and CEO of Groundwork Collaborative, said the new data makes clear that “tax flight is nothing more than a myth, and should be given as much credence as flat-earthers.”
“If there was any merit to the myth that tax increases on New York’s wealthy drive them away, the new IRS data should show it,” said Owens. “It doesn’t—New York’s millionaire population kept climbing years after the state raised taxes on top earners.”
The issue in NYC was that many of them live there full-time, but they declare a property in Florida or Texas or some other American tax haven as their primary residence, and beat NY and NYC out of their income taxes. So Mamdani has figured out a way to squeeze money out of these deadbeat financial hoarders anyway.
I suspect a lot of these “new” millionaire residents are just the same people who have shifted their primary residences to NYC because their accountants did the calculations, and it’s cheaper to pay the state and city income taxes, which can be manipulated, than the pied-a-terre tax.
Either way NY benefits. They’re not giving up their residence so whether they pay the higher pied-a-terre tax or less in primary residence tax, the city gets more revenue from them regardless compared to the 0 tax they paid previously.
Yeah I don’t know how the states would investigate someone and prove they spent above/below 6 months at a location, and once you have say 4 houses, proving your primary residence should be A and not B, C, or D would get messy.