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

New York passes pied-a-terre tax

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 459 posts

Re: New York passes pied-a-terre tax

#301

Post by dirtikiti »

jonathanlydall wrote: post #227
dirtikiti wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you want to tax something that has already been taxed throughout the course of someone's life, just because they want to give it to their kids? The only tax that is fair to everyone is a sales tax.

I live in South Africa where we have 15% VAT. When I was little and playing SimCity 2000 I looked at the tax rates for the city and noticed that the sales tax rate was like 2%, and based on our 14% VAT at the time, it seemed super low to me so I upped it to 12% and was surprised at how unhappy the citizens were. This gave me the impression that Americans wouldn’t be happy with a significant sales tax, or perhaps this…

I would love a VAT tax instead of the never ending stream of taxes we pay on everything else.

Americans are stupid. They see a higher tax on an iPhone they don't need, they will cry about it.

But they pay more at the end of the year on income tax, property tax, car registration, etc., they could care less.

Most Americans don't even look at their pay stub, and are more than happy to overpay their income taxes every paycheck so they get a bigger tax return at the end of the year.

They don't realize that money was theirs to begin with.

They complain about not being able to become wealthy while they give the government an interest free loan, when they could be investing that money and earning on it.

Re: New York passes pied-a-terre tax

#302

Post by cakealert »

ceejayoz wrote: post #260
cakealert wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The share is under your control, the money isn't. Being able to convert it at will doesn't change that. Also how much if anything it's worth when you go to convert it isn't under your control either.

> Being able to convert it at will doesn't change that. Liquidity doesn't matter? Huh. That's a Nobel Prize in Economics waiting to be awarded, if true.

Liquidity is an emergent property. It doesn't change the fact that when you buy something the money moved.

Re: New York passes pied-a-terre tax

#303

Post by steveBK123 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #275
technothrasher wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Federal inheritance taxes. There are also state inheritance taxes in many states. NY, for example, kicks in at ~$7M. MA kicks in at $2M.

> NY, for example, kicks in at ~$7M. Won't someone think of the children? The very wealthy children paying a 3% marginal tax rate on some of their multi-million dollar inheritance?

Honestly my experience with most of these kids is they are so innumerate they won't even notice the tax

Re: New York passes pied-a-terre tax

#304

Post by retired »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #7

I think this is in the right direction, but the cut off at $1M is interesting. Why's there an obsession with the $1m cutoff? The dollar has been turned to dust. $1M is not that much money, especially in housing, especially in NYC. Why tax $1m second homes and not second homes generally? Effectively, you're going to tax almost all second homes. So why the arbitrary cutoff? Chicago wanted to add a "millionaire's tax" o…

The Netherlands has a 2.2% tax on secondary properties with a €50k threshold (total wealth, not per-property). So any holiday home, shed, storage locker, garage space, parking spot, bungalow, pied-a-terre, apartment for your children falls under that tax.

It's.... problematic to say the least. Say you bought a bungalow for €30k in the 2000s that you frequently visit to escape the city. You are a middle class worker, it's paid off and monthly costs are minimal. It is now worth €350k. You need to pay €7700 a year. Most people don't have that type of money so they are forced to sell.

Re: New York passes pied-a-terre tax

#305

Post by sparky_z »

nonethewiser wrote: post #183
neckardt wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government would only buy your house if you underestimated the value of your property. You wouldn’t be able to buy a comparable house with the proceeds because it got sold for much less than it was worth.

>The government would only buy your house if you underestimated the value of your property. Nope, that's not in the rules. It's up to their discretion. It seems like you agree it would be bad for the government to be able to buy your house when you give an accurate assessment. So why not design it out of the rules?

What makes an assessment "accurate"? If there was an objective answer to that question that could be used to adjudicate the rule, then the process wouldn't be needed in the first place.

> It seems like you agree it would be bad for the government to be able to buy your house when you give an accurate assessment.

You're thinking about this wrong (as is the person you were replying to). The whole point of this system is to define "accurate assessment" as the break-even price where you could take or leave being bought out. That's how much the property is actually worth to you. Not some estimate of the aggregate market price. By definition, it's value to you is greater than or equal to the market price because if it's lower, why haven't you sold already? In other words, the idea is not to tax market price, but "market price + consumer surplus".

Note that because everyone's valuation would go up, this should be paired with a reduction in the tax rate.

Re: New York passes pied-a-terre tax

#306

Post by ceejayoz »

cakealert wrote: post #302
ceejayoz wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Being able to convert it at will doesn't change that. Liquidity doesn't matter? Huh. That's a Nobel Prize in Economics waiting to be awarded, if true.

Liquidity is an emergent property. It doesn't change the fact that when you buy something the money moved.

And that doesn't change the fact that Jeff Bezos, fundamentally, is extremely wealthy, even if he'd have to sell or borrow against a few shares to use it.

Re: New York passes pied-a-terre tax

#307

Post by gorgoiler »

VikingCoder wrote: post #106

> While the tax seems large, experts say the city’s antiquated assessment and valuation system dramatically undervalues properties, reducing the burden. City valuations can often be 10% or less of the true market value, they said. I heard about a system for this that struck me as brilliant. Make someone declare the value of their property. Then the government has the choice of taxing them at the scheduled rate, or bu…

What if the city lets you declare your chosen value without being able to force you to sell, but if you ever sell at a higher value then you owe back-taxes on the difference?

And if the difference is more than X% then it’s fraud unless you can persuade a judge otherwise.

The loophole might be that Billionscorp LLC is listed as the property owner, and Jeff Billions technically only rents the penthouse from his own company, which lives forever, and never has to sell up. Closing that loophole by banning corporations from owning residential property would do everyone a favor.

Re: New York passes pied-a-terre tax

#308

Post by SoftTalker »

nonethewiser wrote: post #175
ceejayoz wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/the-pied-a-terre-tax-and... > It is unclear how DOF will treat properties owned by LLCs and trusts. In general, these owners are not considered residents. However, this does not mean that the properties are not used as primary residences. For instance, based on publicly available information, Mayor Bloomberg established his primary residence in two adjacent buildings on the Upper E…

Now remember they are changing how property values are assessed. So everyone's base rises and the rich with 2nd homes dont pay the extra tax because they move it into an LLC.

LLC pays the tax then. It's still a home that isn't a full-time residence.

Re: New York passes pied-a-terre tax

#309

Post by xboxnolifes »

nxm wrote: post #19
jmclnx wrote: post #5

$ have to come from somewhere, with the Fed cutting taxes for the rich and benefits for the poor every other term, time for the states to take over.

Issue is not revenue, it's spending. Florida has 2x the population, yet half the spending on NY.

I cant tell if your suggesting Florida does not provide enough services or if New York over pays for theirs.

Re: New York passes pied-a-terre tax

#310

Post by postflopclarity »

eli wrote: post #223
postflopclarity wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'll be interested to see if it helps create some liquidity in the housing market lol. why would it? if you tax something, you get less of it. there is not even close to any kind of shortage of demand for housing in NYC. there is an enormous shortage of supply; it is in fact _illegal_ in most places to build more supply.

The tax is only on non-primary residences - one person owning multiple homes. I don't expect it to have a significant effect on housing supply, but I think it logically could.

I also don't expect it to have a significant effect. but any effect it does have will be in the direction of less supply.
Post reply on HN