January 30, 2019. Hedge funder Ken Griffin, who owns pricey properties in several other cities, snagged the most expensive apartment in not just New York City, but the entire country—but he reportedly doesn’t even plan to use the home as his primary residence. The sale prompted several elected officials to renew calls for a pied-à-Terre tax for secondary properties in New York City.
The pied-à-terre tax is not a new concept. Back in 2014, state Senator Brad Hoylman drafted a bill based on a proposal by the Fiscal Policy Institute that would have imposed a graduated tax starting at 0.5 percent on non-resident owners of properties valued at more than $5 million and rising to as much as 4 percent on those with properties worth more than $25 million.
At the time, the FPI estimated that such a pied-à-terre tax could generate more than $600 million a year in additional city revenue. That number was based on an estimate that the number of pied-à-terres valued in excess of $5 million was 1,556. (However, an analysis of the city’s luxury housing market in 2015 by the city’s Independent Budget Office disputed that figure as inflated and estimated that the amount would fall well below $380 million.)
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