A memo from New York City’s Democratic mayoral nominee suggests shifting the tax burden to “whiter neighborhoods,” a controversial move that has triggered alarm from his opponents.
The memo from Socialist Zohran Mamdani’s campaign, “Stop the Squeeze on NYC Homeowners,” outlined his plans to reduce costs for New York City homeowners. While he has been criticized for his ideas being overly liberal or unrealistic, one part of his plan has particularly raised eyebrows — a proposal to shift the tax burden toward white taxpayers.
The memo pledged that the mayor’s administration would “Shift the tax burden from overtaxed homeowners in the outer boroughs to more expensive homes in richer and whiter neighborhoods.”
The memo proposed doing this by “pushing class assessment percentages down for everyone and adjusting rates up, effectively lowering tax payments for homeowners in neighborhoods like Jamaica
and Brownsville while raising the amount paid in the most expensive Brooklyn brownstones.”
The proposal went viral on social media Thursday, drawing outrage from conservative figures such as Turning Point USA leader Charlie Kirk.
“Zohran Mamdani is promising to hike the tax burden for ‘whiter neighborhoods.’ Maybe we shouldn’t admit people from foreign countries who want to take things from the native population based on their race?” he said in a post on X.
Conservative activist Douglass Mackey said the proposal was “explicitly anti-white.”
“This is not going to ‘tax the rich,’ this is going to absolutely crush the white people of New York who did the right thing, saved their money over the years, and bought real estate. It will also crush conservative New Yorkers living in places like Staten Island, Breezy Point, Riverdale, et cetera,” he said in a post on X.
Writer Crémieux Recueil questioned the underlying wisdom of the proposal itself, arguing that Mamandi was misunderstanding the issue. They also criticized his “ugly motivation” in framing taxes racially.
“Just because there are racial differences does not mean there’s racism. Outcome differences crop up without any racism whatsoever. Example: IRS audits,” Recueil wrote. “But thinking there’s racism is a good way to get actually racist policy, like what you’re proposing.”
The proposal even drew some flak from Democrats. Democratic activist Brianna Wu sounded the alarm over it, implying that the bad optics of the move would hurt Democrats nationally.
“Here we go. Zohran proposing taxing people more based on race. Specifically white people,” Wu, who ran for Congress in 2018 and 2020, wrote. “Love that this man is going to represent Democrats nationally in the public mind. This is going to go well.”
The proposal could even land Mamdani in legal trouble. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon told Benny Johnson that the Department of Justice could launch a discrimination investigation against Mamdani over the matter.
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“Racial discrimination is illegal in the United States – period. Full stop! The illegal discriminatory scheme described by Mamdani would violate federal constitutional and statutory norms, and might even violate New York law,” she said.
Mamdani won the Democratic nomination to be mayor of New York City earlier this week. His victory sent a shockwave nationally, putting himself in a position to be the first openly socialist mayor of the U.S.’s largest and most iconic city.