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New York to tax luxury second homes in NYC

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Re: New York to tax luxury second homes in NYC

#91

Post by bragr »

bobthepanda wrote: post #76
asdff wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't that which is the issue. It is the fact greenwich village has been at the same height since even before Don Draper's time. You see, the suburban enclaves of long island and upstate and new jersey and the comparatively more built up areas of manhattan do have the exact same issue with regards to housing, and that is there is little room in the zoned capacity to legally add any more housing. In 1961, NYC adopt…

With historic landmarks or districts you can generally transfer unused development capacity to other sites. Grand Central famously was spared from demolition but its unused zoning rights have been transferred elsewhere.

Sure but they are still a finite resource. Once you've transferred those rights to a super tall luxury condo building, you can't readily transform that into affordable middle class and lower income housing.

Re: New York to tax luxury second homes in NYC

#92

Post by mjamesaustin »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #61
nickv wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because wealth is also distributed in a very lumpy way across the city. 154 residents of NYC own 33% of the entire wealth of the city... notice I didn't say 1%, I said top 154. They are not contributing 33% of the tax income to the city. So yes, the ultra rich pay "less taxes" if you look at how much of the resident wealth they control. Also, property taxes are significantly lower than appraised value and the richer…

Wealth distribution is a false flag. Rain distribution across the globe is not equal, solar light distribution is not equal and they impact people's life more than wealth distribution. USA and the entire planet's population is at record high in living standards and wealth, but some people are still unhappy because not everything is perfectly equal and at zero entropy like the thermal death of the universe: this is mo…

Imagine 1.6% of the earth receiving nearly 50% of all sunlight, and 82% of the earth only receiving 12% of all precipitation.

If rain distribution and solar light distribution were even half as unequal as wealth distribution, our global ecosystem would collapse.

Re: New York to tax luxury second homes in NYC

#93

Post by cucumber3732842 »

organsnyder wrote: post #54
ch4s3 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bedrock is only a little lower in the "Midtown Gap", and in any case a lot of those 4 story buildings could be 8-10.

I'm guessing it would be tough to make the numbers work demolishing a 4-story building and building one that's only 2-2.5x the square footage, especially with today's interest rates.

You'll lose a ton of square footage to compliance. Those wide doorways with non conflicting doors, wide staircases, required clearances around everything, all the other stuff that's been done to old apartments that isn't compatible with modern codes.

So that 2.5x square footage is more like 1.5x when it comes to the number of units of like quality/liveability you can pack in.

Re: New York to tax luxury second homes in NYC

#94

Post by throwaway27448 »

ch4s3 wrote: post #4
mikeweiss wrote: post #2

Good! Second homes in any region with low inventory should be taxed...

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.

Why not both? To suggest otherwise is absurd.

If I might put my tinfoil hat on for a moment, I think the recent obsession with upzoning is to distract from the possibility of regulating landlords—as if there were any large number of people opposed to upzoning before....

Re: New York to tax luxury second homes in NYC

#95

Post by smallmancontrov »

lovich wrote: post #60
galleywest200 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxing second homes would halt construction? Plenty of people out there wish to own a first home, myself included.

This guy thinks a tax on second homes in fucking NYC is going to disproportionately harm the middle class. He is economically illiterate. Edit: scratch that, he also mentioned leaving a rent controlled apartment because of a crabs in a bucket mentality. I think he’s lying to push his own political agenda which appears to be that of the rich never paying taxes. I’ll lol if he’s some pleb like most of us and is just ru…

Or economically literate and malicious. Many such cases.

Re: New York to tax luxury second homes in NYC

#96

Post by bobthepanda »

ch4s3 wrote: post #24
Daishiman wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Manhattan the low zones are due to the soil not being good for higher construction. Lower Manhattan and midtown are made of basalt stone that is extremely strong and apt for skyscrapers.

Bedrock is only a little lower in the "Midtown Gap", and in any case a lot of those 4 story buildings could be 8-10.

the real reason midtown is where it is, is because that is where the train stations are due to the city banning surface running railways south of 42nd St. (The remaining surface railways north of that point have been covered up.)

As a result, Midtown is now one of the few places in New York's metropolitan that can reach the millions of people in the five boroughs and the suburbs all at once, which means the labor market is substantially larger than what it is in Lower Manhattan or Downtown Brooklyn, and makes it massively more attractive for employers.

Re: New York to tax luxury second homes in NYC

#97

Post by 9dev »

SoftTalker wrote: post #81
dwa3592 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last year year Jeff bezos and I both paid taxes for the year of 2024. The percentage he paid on the money he made is far less than I did. I gave higher share of my income to the government than he did. Bezos's true tax rate was less than 1% and mine was around 25%. Link - https://itep.org/washington-post-rich-not-paying-fair-share/

IDK what Bezos made as "income" last year but paper gains in asset values are not "income" for tax purposes, though some people might look at the increase in his wealth and call that money he "made" that year. But we don't have a wealth tax on a federal level at least.

> some people might look at the increase in his wealth and call that money he "made" that year

What in gods name would you call that otherwise?

> But we don't have a wealth tax on a federal level at least

And that somehow justifies rich people paying less taxes, because they navigate the system better than regular people?

Re: New York to tax luxury second homes in NYC

#98

Post by phyzix5761 »

dwa3592 wrote: post #50
giantg2 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"seeing the ultra rich paying far less taxes then they are." Is this actually true? I thought looking at the aggregates that the top 10% pay something like 1/3rd of all income/cap gain taxes.

Last year year Jeff bezos and I both paid taxes for the year of 2024. The percentage he paid on the money he made is far less than I did. I gave higher share of my income to the government than he did. Bezos's true tax rate was less than 1% and mine was around 25%. Link - https://itep.org/washington-post-rich-not-paying-fair-share/

This post makes the mistake of counting unrealized gains as income. That's not how taxes or investments work. Unrealized gains are NOT income. That's how they mistakenly come up with the number that he pays less than 1% in income tax. Investments, in general, are not income (unless held less than 12 months or if they pay dividends).

Imagine you had to pay income taxes every year on the unrealized gains of your 401k, house, and car value. You too would be said to be paying a very low income tax rate. But again that's not how income taxes work because none of those things are income.

If Bezos were to sell those shares and actually realize those gains then he would be rightly taxed but that would also likely tank the stock as his 8% ownership is significant enough to drop the price drastically. 55% of Amazon is owned by 401k and other retirement accounts so if the price tanks average Americans take a huge hit.

Bezos does sell shares, all the time actually. You can see this in the SEC filings. And he is rightly taxed on those realized gains. But he's not going to sell all of his shares as that would be damaging to Amazon, the workers, retirement accounts, and his own investments.

Instead, the money stays in the company paying worker wages, buying new facilities, etc. This is even better for the economy because it keeps the funds in circulation. This generates even more tax revenue than if he did a 1 time sale of his investments. That's why unrealized gains don't get taxed, because its financially a worse outcome than keeping the money in circulation.

Re: New York to tax luxury second homes in NYC

#99

Post by bityard »

ch4s3 wrote: post #4
mikeweiss wrote: post #2

Good! Second homes in any region with low inventory should be taxed...

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.

If someone tried to "up-zone," wouldn't they incur enormous popular and media backlash for demolishing buildings and displacing communities that have been there for decades just so they could build high-rent luxury skyscrapers?

I feel like that was the backdrop to about half the movies I watched in the '80s.

Re: New York to tax luxury second homes in NYC

#100

Post by asdff »

bobthepanda wrote: post #76
asdff wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't that which is the issue. It is the fact greenwich village has been at the same height since even before Don Draper's time. You see, the suburban enclaves of long island and upstate and new jersey and the comparatively more built up areas of manhattan do have the exact same issue with regards to housing, and that is there is little room in the zoned capacity to legally add any more housing. In 1961, NYC adopt…

With historic landmarks or districts you can generally transfer unused development capacity to other sites. Grand Central famously was spared from demolition but its unused zoning rights have been transferred elsewhere.

One issue with using hollywood accounting for zoning is failing to consider the context of the site, especially in terms of infrastructure and job access, in favor of historical protections. All that subway capacity and walkability to so many jobs in greenwich village for example is being squandered by punting potential upzoning elsewhere.
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