Opinion: Property Tax Hikes Would Break Homeowners of Color Like Me. Let Mamdani Tax The Rich.

“The actual solution to the city’s budget crisis is for Gov. Kathy Hochul to finally make our ever-increasing population of billionaires and millionaires pay what they owe in taxes.”

I narrowly avoided losing my home during the Great Recession. The next time, I might not be so lucky.

Back in February, Mayor Zohran Mamdani made it clear that hiking New York City property taxes is a dire “last resort” he does not want to pursue in his obligation to close the city’s $5.4 billion deficit. For New Yorkers like me—a son of Haitian immigrants born and raised in New York, and a Queens Village homeowner of 30 years—higher property taxes would be devastating. 

One, we already pay crazy property taxes, and two, our property tax system is already unequally structured. Homeowners in neighborhoods like Queens Village, St. Albans and Jamaica, who are predominantly low-income folks and people of color, pay higher property tax rates than those in Park Slope or on Park Avenue. 

The actual solution to the city’s budget crisis is for Gov. Kathy Hochul to finally make our ever-increasing population of billionaires and millionaires pay what they owe in taxes. I get it—no one likes paying taxes. But 2 percent for Mike Bloomberg is not the same as 2 percent for me, a security guard at a church.

And New York City’s wealthiest are doing better than ever: President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act means New York taxpayers who earn $1 million or more annually will save a collective $12 billion in federal taxes each year, translating to an annual average tax cut of $129,600 per millionaire taxpayer. 

The fact is, people like me are getting squeezed out of this city. Soon, New York will be a city of renter-servants who service the billionaires who can still afford to live here. If our costs keep rising faster than our wage growth and inflation, we’ll be forced to sell our homes and leave the city. New York City already faces historic rates of poverty; the share of New Yorkers in poverty is close to double the national average, and grew by 7 percentage points in the last two years alone. 

But Gov. Hochul has the power to prevent this from happening. She can allow Mayor Zohran Mamdani to make New York City’s millionaires and billionaires cough up just a little more money so we don’t have to raise property taxes or make austerity cuts to schools and hospitals, and so we can enact his affordability agenda. The governor’s proposed pied-à-terre tax on luxury second homes in New York City is a welcome step toward shifting the tax burden away from working-class homeowners, but it wouldn’t raise the billions of dollars we need to fill the city’s deficit and invest in our public programs.

Working people like me and millions of others across New York City are the backbone of our state’s economy, and we deserve funding from the state we keep running. New York City contributes 55.6 percent of the state’s revenue, but only 41.7 percent flows back to support our city. In 2022 alone, our city sent $68.8 billion to Albany but got just $47.6 billion back, leaving a $21.2 billion gap. These are billions of dollars that could help close the budget gap and support the programs and services that help keep our city livable for working-class people.

If millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share in taxes—and Albany sends the money we deserve back to our city—we can keep New Yorkers in their homes and make it easier for the next generation to achieve homeownership. We can keep hospitals open and get homeless people off the street. We can get affordable childcare in our neighborhoods. We can build up our public schools to produce smart citizens who help design policies to avoid this kind of mess.

Making the very rich pay what they owe doesn’t mean we’re sticking our hands in their pockets—it just means everyone is stepping up to the plate.

Jean Sassine is a husband, father, lifelong New Yorker and Queens Village homeowner. As a New York Communities for Change member and Southeast Queens Chapter chair, he advocates for economic, racial and social justice.