None of the homeowners suing over the rollout of the city’s pied-à-terre tax on New Yorkers’ pricey second homes are actually subject to the tax, a fact that the city told the Staten Island Supreme Court judge hearing the case on Monday should lead to the suit’s dismissal.
Homeowners bringing the case argue that the city mailing out notices to 17,000 people who may owe the new tax unfairly placed the burden of determining who owes it on homeowners, as those letters asked property owners to send the city paperwork asking for an exemption if they believed they shouldn’t have to pay. The property owners want the city to annul those letters, unpublish a database of nearly 1 million properties the city put online as part of the rollout and “redo” the process after making a more specific determination about who exactly should owe the tax.
