Speaker 1: Taxing about this is the seventy seven w ABC Mini cast.
Speaker 2: Well, everybody in the city is panicking about their name
Speaker 2: being on a list on the list that, well, it's
Speaker 2: gonna quest you a lot more taxes. The Pierre a
Speaker 2: tear tax with us today is the former first deputy mayor,
Speaker 2: well former twice. You were the first deputy mayor under
Speaker 2: Ruby Giuliani, You're the first deputy mayor under under Eric Adams,
Speaker 2: Randy Mashaw. You're now the attorney to defend the system. Uh,
Speaker 2: give us an update on the nine hundred and seventy
Speaker 2: five thousand people they that were on that list. I
Speaker 2: understand a few less people are on the crap list.
Speaker 1: So John, pleasure to be with you. As always, I
Speaker 1: represent role of the homeowners who showed up on that
Speaker 1: original list of nine hundred and seventy five thousand New
Speaker 1: Yorkers that the Mandani administration said is related to the surcharge.
Speaker 1: Wasn't related to the surcharge at all. Then seventeen thousand
Speaker 1: New York City homeowners got letters, noticed letters and the
Speaker 1: Mandani administration that said, quote, you may be subject to
Speaker 1: the new surcharge and switching the burden to them to
Speaker 1: seek an exemption proving that they live in their own homes.
Speaker 1: Instead of following what the state law required of the
Speaker 1: city in giving the city the right to impose such
Speaker 1: a second home surcharge, It said, the city has to
Speaker 1: make that initial determination, and it has to review the
Speaker 1: evidence and the information available to it, make that determine
Speaker 1: in good faith, and then advise individuals. The city didn't
Speaker 1: do that. The city switched the burden. The city took
Speaker 1: the cop out way and said, I'm going to switch
Speaker 1: the burden to you to prove it's actually your home,
Speaker 1: and if you don't do it, if you don't apply
Speaker 1: for one of these exemptions, we're going to deem you
Speaker 1: subject to the tax. Now here's the problem. Seventeen thousand
Speaker 1: people got that letter, and it only goes to homes
Speaker 1: valued at more than five million, and co ops and
Speaker 1: condos valued at more than one millions.
Speaker 2: When you say the word value, is that the assessed
Speaker 2: valuation that's on your normal tax bill.
Speaker 1: Or if it supposed to be your market assessed value?
Speaker 1: And John, there's only twenty four thousand homes total in
Speaker 1: New York City that meet those thresholds. Are you telling
Speaker 1: me that seventeen thousand out of those twenty four thousand,
Speaker 1: that's for seventy percent our second homes. They're pieditors. They
Speaker 1: are largely unutilized or underutilized because they're owned by people
Speaker 1: who don't live in New York City. That is absurd,
Speaker 1: But this is what the Mundani administration did to try
Speaker 1: to burden New York City homeowners and impose the tax
Speaker 1: on them, the surcharge, even though they're not responsible for
Speaker 1: the surch charge. At the end of the day, there
Speaker 1: will only be a few thousand. We had five six
Speaker 1: thousand maybe homes in New York City, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: a very small percentage.
Speaker 2: What we'd like to do at a certain point is
Speaker 2: you have to fight whatever you think you're fighting the
Speaker 2: right thing to do about from our city residents. Now,
Speaker 2: my official residence is New York City, my son's official
Speaker 2: residence is New York City, my daughter's official residence is
Speaker 2: in New York City. So I should not have a bill.
Speaker 1: Right, of course, you shouldn't have a bill. You should
Speaker 1: never have shown up on that list of nine hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy five hours of New Yorkers. And if you've
Speaker 1: got one of those notices. It's ridiculous, It's outrageous. John,
Speaker 1: I got one of those notices. I'm the former first
Speaker 1: deputy mayor who until December thirty one had as a
Speaker 1: legal requirement that I had to live in the city.
Speaker 1: But I've been living here for forty years and paying
Speaker 1: taxes here for forty years too. Was it so hard
Speaker 1: for the Mandani administration to check the tax records and
Speaker 1: see that, well, let me ask the taxes and we
Speaker 1: live here. No, but they didn't get it.
Speaker 2: Randy Mestro, you know, should the state be overseeing this
Speaker 2: because it made it made a lot of people angry.
Speaker 2: Shouldn't the state be overseeing it?
Speaker 1: Well, I think that it's incumbent. I'm the governor who
Speaker 1: endorsed this at Mayor Mondanie's request, and the state legislature
Speaker 1: to look into this. The city Council is looking into it.
Speaker 1: Julia Manna has said she's going to do that. But
Speaker 1: what the Mondana administration did here was it blatantly violated
Speaker 1: the state law that authorized implementation of the statue. It
Speaker 1: was very strict that state law. It was you city
Speaker 1: have to make the initial determination in good faith that
Speaker 1: the property meets the value thresholds and that it really
Speaker 1: is a second home. And there's lots of documents available
Speaker 1: to you city, including tax records. So nobody's paying New
Speaker 1: York City taxes unless they live here, right, But the
Speaker 1: city didn't do that, so they sent these notices to
Speaker 1: people like me who everybody knows I live in this city,
Speaker 1: like everybody knows you live in this city.
Speaker 2: John, that's correct. I mean we both live here now,
Speaker 2: So can we get somebody to oversee this from the
Speaker 2: state or city to do the right thing?
Speaker 1: Well, John, that's why we're going to be going to court, right,
Speaker 1: We're going to be going to get a court order
Speaker 1: that basically says those notices in that list they are
Speaker 1: a nullody, they are invalid, they are illegal, they violate
Speaker 1: the state statutory mandate.
Speaker 2: And judges that the judges that are looking at it
Speaker 2: are probably on that list.
Speaker 1: Some of them are, John, because some of them are
Speaker 1: New York City homeowners. Yes, but look, sometimes you have
Speaker 1: to go to court, you have to stand up the
Speaker 1: city hall, you have to fight, and I intend to
Speaker 1: go to court to fight on behalf of all New
Speaker 1: Yorkers who got these illegal notices, all the hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands of New Yorkers who ended up on that list
Speaker 1: where they're private personal information about who they are, where
Speaker 1: they live, what their property values are. Never should have
Speaker 1: been published, never should have happened. And now the switching
Speaker 1: the burden to thousands of New York City homeowners who
Speaker 1: live here to have to prove they live in their
Speaker 1: own homes, that's just totally outrageous.
Speaker 2: Randy mass Show, thank you for coming on this Sunday morning,
Speaker 2: and we're waking you up, I know, and let's talk
Speaker 2: again real soon. Keep us informed so we can keep
Speaker 2: the Zenian amount of people listening to WABC to know
Speaker 2: what's really going on. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Thank you, John. Pleasure to be with you.