Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

New York to tax luxury second homes in NYC

apnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 288 posts

Re: New York to tax luxury second homes in NYC

#261

Post by SoftTalker »

kube-system wrote: post #242
anamax wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The wealthy often make their money as capital gains, which if they held for at least one year, are exempt from the income tax Not even close. As your link shows, "the wealthy" pay taxes on long-term capital gains. The lowest rate (for "the wealthy") is 15% but they can owe 20% or even 28% in certain circumstances.

I didn't say they didn't pay taxes. I said the money was exempt from the income tax, which it is. Capital gains are not taxed as income, it is taxed as a capital gain, which has significantly lower rates than income tax.

Capital gains are taxed lower as an incentive to make long term investments, vs. short term speculation.

Re: New York to tax luxury second homes in NYC

#262

Post by NickC25 »

citadel_melon wrote: post #62
tlogan wrote: post #16

I assume this will be challenged in court immediately. Does anyone understand whether it is likely to survive those legal challenges? EDIT: Here is a list reported by Google search but I really do not understand or know how reasonable these challenges are. Equal Protection: Owners may argue the tax unfairly treats similar properties differently based on second-home status, value threshold, or owner residence. This is…

Property taxes already exist. There is no obvious reason why this particular property tax would be legally problematic. The tax is also likely politically difficult to counter. Consider how limited in scope these taxes are, how the tax revenue benefits residents who live in NYC through providing more revenue for services without taxing residents at all, and how the only constituent the taxes negatively affects are no…

>The reason these CEOs go to NYC is because that is where the talent and economic clustering is: if these high-net-worth individuals could get the talent they need to run their firms in Miami and Austin, they would have done so already. They have tried and they have failed up until this point.

This needs to be shouted from the rooftops.

I am from NYC and live in Miami.

I have seen hedge funds try and fail to bring talent down here, and paying talent through the nose to convince them. It has failed, because 1. local private schools won't let Ken Griffin buy his way to the front of the line; and 2. there's no local talent pipelines to recruit from that come even remotely close to what is found in the Northeast, or in the Bay Area.

UM pales in comparison to the fact that almost every Ivy League school is within a 3 hour drive of NYC, not counting other strong school (NYU, NEASC colleges, MIT, etc). FIU or UF isn't even in the same stratosphere.

Taxes pay for the establishment of a strong educational foundation so that even local public schools can send kids to Ivies or top colleges. Taxes pay to keep that going.

Re: New York to tax luxury second homes in NYC

#263

Post by ch4s3 »

dgellow wrote: post #208
ch4s3 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like a place like Manhattan might benefit from first up-zoning the low slung sections that are currently 4-8 stories. My point here is that I'd start with trying to build enough housing before spending political capital on marginal things that neither unlock supply nor generate much revenue.

Spending political capital? Mamdani is gaining political capital with such taxes!

Gaining in some places and losing it in others.

Re: New York to tax luxury second homes in NYC

#264

Post by tastyface »

WarmWash wrote: post #231
tastyface wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, then Bezos must be living a humble, middle-class life with very limited liquidation of his assets. Surely, he’s not using loans, write-offs, and legal tricks to fund a Great Gatsby lifestyle while pretending to have no actual income? Right?

Your headline-expert confusion on how it works isn't the flex you think it is.

Thanks for the completely content-free comment! You're a credit to the community.

Re: New York to tax luxury second homes in NYC

#265

Post by undeveloper »

rootusrootus wrote: post #255
Mallory_Ringess wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...bub Mamdani is a socialist and he will run into these problems.

Isn’t he a democratic socialist? I.e. European style social democracy? We don’t see many honest-to-god actual Socialists in the US.

democratic socialist isn't inherently interchangeable with social democracy. the DSA defines democratic socialism as explicitly at odds with capitalism, and aims to achieve socialism by going through and past social democracy (where european social democracy is plenty capitalist). Mamdani himself has actively disavowed capitalism.

> Capitalism is a system designed by the owning class to exploit the rest of us for their own profit. We must replace it with democratic socialism, a system where ordinary people have a real voice in our workplaces, neighborhoods, and society.

> We believe there are many avenues that feed into the democratic road to socialism. Our vision pushes further than historic social democracy and leaves behind authoritarian visions of socialism in the dustbin of history.

> [...] We want to win “radical” reforms like single-payer Medicare for All, defunding the police/refunding communities, the Green New Deal, and more as a transition to a freer, more just life.

1: https://www.dsausa.org/about-us/what-is-democratic-socialism...

Re: New York to tax luxury second homes in NYC

#266

Post by wat10000 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #252
9dev wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now this is just disingenuous. As if the net worth of Jeff Bezos and the rest of the Epstein class was somehow threatened by market fluctuations or some high-risk investments. As long as the economy continues to grow, these people will thrive. All while avoiding to pay their share for society.

I have no doubt his investments are well-diversified. He's not an idiot. My point was simply that income and wealth are two different things, at least for tax purposes.

This is well known. The question is whether they should be. It's not some immutable law of nature, it's a deliberate policy choice to tax returns on capital differently from returns on labor.

Re: New York to tax luxury second homes in NYC

#267

Post by bfeynman »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #212
bfeynman wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is that really what people want? The fact that people say why not have 50 story concrete blocks everywhere to get more people feels like exact thing that would destroy what makes living in the city nice... Tenement housing sucked, why add thousands of people to crammed parts of city. We should be incentivizing sprawl and better transportation.

> is that really what people want? Yes. I feel like Americans and New Yorkers have been very clear about what they want in housing: more of it, and cheaper.

I am a New Yorker, people want more housing but there is still NIMBYism because they want to preserve the charm, and I'm mostly only talking about manhattan. While people are not fans of the low density luxury skyscrapers popping up in places, I've not seen people who currently live in the place think we should add massive housing blocs carte blanche. Sure there few scattered places for a few projects but not like advocating to tear down to build bigger. That mentality comes from people who are definitely not new yorkers or live in fringes.

Re: New York to tax luxury second homes in NYC

#268

Post by bfeynman »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #235
jjav wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would paving over all of Central Park to fill the area with residential skyscrapers be a good idea?

> Would paving over all of Central Park to fill the area with residential skyscrapers be a good idea? As a moderately wealthy former New Yorker? I say no. If we put it to a referendum? I’d give it even odds. If the referendum were for developing part of Central Park into public housing? I’d guess it would pass.

Eh, I would only think if its like at the top of the park where less people/tourists ever visit.

Re: New York to tax luxury second homes in NYC

#269

Post by bfeynman »

TitaRusell wrote: post #250
bfeynman wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is that really what people want? The fact that people say why not have 50 story concrete blocks everywhere to get more people feels like exact thing that would destroy what makes living in the city nice... Tenement housing sucked, why add thousands of people to crammed parts of city. We should be incentivizing sprawl and better transportation.

Yes nobody wants to live in cities which is why nobody lives there. Tokio, Singapore, Amsterdam- all ghost towns.

You are missing the point. Of course people want to live in one of the most vibrant cities in the world. People also want a vacation home at the beach or in the mountains thats private and beautiful and easy to get to. Except if we built giant monstrosities and condos in the hamptons and make all ski homes tenement housing it will be much less desirable to go to them. No ones asking to make more apartments and housing in rust belt cities.

Re: New York to tax luxury second homes in NYC

#270

Post by kube-system »

SoftTalker wrote: post #261
kube-system wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say they didn't pay taxes. I said the money was exempt from the income tax, which it is. Capital gains are not taxed as income, it is taxed as a capital gain, which has significantly lower rates than income tax.

Capital gains are taxed lower as an incentive to make long term investments, vs. short term speculation.

That is a perfectly fine goal, however, I don't think the current structure actually accomplishes that goal very well.
Post reply on HN