(Combo) Created on November 19, 2025, this photo combination shows Democratic candidate for New York Mayor Zoran Mamdani in New York City on October 19, 2025, and US President Donald Trump in Washington DC on October 24, 2025.
Angela Weiss, Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images
President Donald Trump on Tuesday slammed New York City’s pied-à-terre tax and said the federal government is considering “whether we have a legal right to avert this disaster before it’s too late.”
Taxing wealthy owners on homes other than their home bases “doesn’t work in America and must stop now!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
President Trump’s pledge to seek federal intervention in the tax, championed by Mayor Zoran Mamdani and passed by the New York State Assembly in late May, came a day after a Staten Island judge temporarily blocked the new policy.
The New York City government immediately filed a motion to appeal the order, putting the judge’s order on hold.
Mamdani’s office did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment on Trump’s threat to challenge the pied-à-terre tax. Asked about the ongoing lawsuit, the mayor’s office told CNBC that Mamdani promised at a Monday press conference that he “looks forward to vigorously defending the city’s position in court.”
“We are confident in our position,” Mamdani said. “And that’s the confidence that comes from both the legality of the city’s actions and the importance of the $5 million or more secondary housing surcharge, which will help fund safer streets, help fund stronger schools, and help give the city funding that New Yorkers deserve.”
“A dangerous political ‘experiment’ in New York will destroy a once great city and state,” President Trump said of the tax in a post Tuesday morning.
Trump added that as president, it’s “hard to sit back and watch things happen, especially in a place I once loved.”
Trump is a native New Yorker who lived in a penthouse in Manhattan’s Trump Tower before moving his headquarters to Mar-a-Lago Golf Club in Florida in 2019. It is unclear whether Mr. Trump or his immediate family will be subject to New York City taxes.
Trump also argued that taxing second homes is prompting thousands of people to flee to more tax-advantaged areas, wiping out income that the policy would have brought in.
The claim echoes other warnings issued after the election of Mamdani, a democratic socialist who promised to increase the salaries of the city’s wealthiest people.
For example, Citadel CEO Ken Griffin threatened to move the business to Miami after Mamdani revealed the pied-à-terre tax in a video featuring Griffin’s ultra-luxury Manhattan penthouse.
Mr. Griffin also indicated that Citadel is reconsidering moving forward with an expensive redevelopment of the Park Avenue building. But Vornado CEO Stephen Ross said on a recent earnings call that Mr. Griffin has no intention of abandoning his plans to build the New York City building.
Some dismiss concerns that raising taxes on the wealthy will drive people out of New York, which already has the highest income tax rate in the nation. Some studies show that the proportion of New York’s millionaires has declined in recent years, but others challenge the idea that the wealthy are escaping high state taxes.
The pied-a-terre tax, supported by Mamdani and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, would increase taxes on second-tier properties valued at $1 million or more, with higher-value homes potentially facing higher rates.
Mr. Mamdani, who announced the policy on Tax Day, said it was expected to bring in $500 million in revenue, but New York City Comptroller Mark Levin a few weeks later said that estimate could be as low as $340 million to $380 million.
Last week, three New York City residents filed a lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court challenging the city’s distribution of a list containing the names, addresses, and property values of hundreds of thousands of New York homeowners. The lawsuit also targets a written notice the city mailed to 17,000 people on the list informing them that they may be subject to the new tax.
The complaint alleges that these actions “arbitrarily and capriciously imposed the burden on New York City residents to certify that they are not subject to the tax,” rather than the city first determining which properties are eligible.
On Monday, Judge Wayne Otzi temporarily blocked the city from “taking any further action” regarding the list or mailed notices.
Hours later, a lawyer for the city of Mamdani said in a court filing that the city intended to file a motion seeking permission to appeal the ruling.
Doing so would “automatically suspend” all proceedings to enforce Otzi’s order for the time being, the lawyers wrote.
