POESTENKILL, NY – Gov. Kathy Hochul insisted — again — Tuesday that she’s done raising taxes now that Albany leaders are on board with her plan to impose a new levy on multi-million dollar second homes in New York City.
“Not for me,” Hochul said when pressed by The Post on whether she was still entertaining more new taxes as part of the weeks-delayed state budget talks.
The remarks come as a a massive group of unions and lefty organization wrote a letter to legislative leaders demanding they not take the foot off the gas in fighting for more taxes.
NY Governor Kathy Hochul claimed she was done raising taxes. Stephen Yang for NY Post“We call on Governor Hochul to listen to the overwhelming majority of New Yorkers who support a fairer tax system, not to the billionaire donors who benefit from the status quo,” the groups, including District Council 37, Hotel and Gaming Trades Council and the New York City Democratic Socialists of America, wrote.
Hochul had resisted feverish calls from Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his “tax the rich” allies — until she last week unveiled the new pied-à-terre tax, which she hopes will raise $500 million a year to cover what Hizzoner has said is a $5.4 billion budget gap.
She also sent $1.5 billion to help bail out the city, on top of billions in new spending for child care programs.
But Hochul said this time, she really means no new taxes — and that it’s up to the City Council and Mamdani to figure out how to make up the rest of the fiscal gap.
“They are finding pathways and we’re working hand in glove with them to find ways to just rein in the cost of New York City government. That that has to continue,” Hochul said.
The governor did leave the door open to other proposals as part of the budget package that could lower costs.
Changes to New York City’s class size law, for example, are on the table and could punt some costs on the schools budget down the road.
New York Post cover for Thursday, April 16, 2026 rfaraino“If there’s changes in legislation that are required to help them manage expenses where the state has involvement, we’ll be doing that for sure,” Hochul said.
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) said Friday that he was still open to more taxes, but was waiting for Assembly budget wonks to reconcile how large the city’s budget actually is compared to the figure asserted by Mamdani.
“He says it’s $5.4 billion. The city council got it down to zero. I assume it’s somewhere in the middle somewhere in between those two numbers. I think they have to figure that out and we go from there,” Heastie said.
One of Hochul’s top aides, State Operations Director Jackie Bray, said at a Citizens Budget Commission forum Tuesday morning that “certainly probably” the pied-à-terre tax puts “an end to major moves to raise revenue in this budget.”
But he noted: “Does it put an end to people talking about more taxes? Of course not.”
Meanwhile, an influential group of Big Apple business leaders are pushing Albany for a “reasonable” exemption to the new pied-à-terre tax for part-time residents who bolster the city’s economy.
Steve Fulop, the CEO for Partnership for NYC, told The Post Tuesday the coalition of industry leaders, also including the Business Council of New York State and the Real Estate Board of New York, were in talks to secure some sort of carve out.
“This is a reasonable step if the goal of the pied-à-terre tax is to target absentee wealth – then elected officials should take steps to make sure that job creators, New York residents, and major contributors to the local economy aren’t collateral damage,” Fulop said.
“If the objective is stopping people from just parking money then this is reasonable.”
He pointed to billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin, whose company, Citadel, is investing billions of dollars into the city and hiring thousands of people.
Mamdani drew outrage for filming a video touting the new tax — which would hit owners of secondary homes worth at least $5 million — outside of Griffin’s $238 million spread on Central Park South.
