Mamdani's NYC Win Puts a 2 Percent Millionaire Tax Back Before Albany

Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York City on November 4, 2025, a win called within 40 minutes of polls closing that, according to PBS NewsHour, drew the largest mayoral turnout in more than 50 years. Mamdani campaigned on funding an ambitious agenda partly through a new 2 percentage point tax on New Yorkers earning more than $1 million a year, a proposal that now moves from campaign talking point to an actual request in Albany.

What changed

The mayor's office cannot impose new income taxes on its own. New York City's personal income tax, layered on top of the state's, is set through state law, so Mamdani's plan requires both the state legislature and Governor Kathy Hochul to agree, something PBS NewsHour noted Hochul had so far resisted. The proposal itself is not new; Mamdani ran on it during the 2025 campaign as part of a broader plan that also includes raising the city's corporate tax rate, and reporting from ABC News and Gothamist has since filled in more detail on how it would work now that he holds the office.

Who is affected

The surtax would apply only to New Yorkers with more than $1,000,000 in annual income, a group that includes high earners in finance, law, medicine, technology and business ownership, as well as anyone with a large one-time gain from selling a company or exercising equity compensation in a given year. It would not touch anyone below that threshold, but it would apply to the full amount above $1,000,000, not just income above some higher ceiling.

The after-tax math

Example, using the structure reported by Gothamist and ABC News: New York City residents already pay a city income tax that adds roughly 3.9 percent on top of the state's own graduated tax, which reaches 10.9 percent on income above $25 million for joint filers. A resident earning $2,000,000 today might face a combined city-and-state marginal rate in the high teens once federal tax is set aside. Add Mamdani's proposed 2 percentage point surtax, and that same household's marginal rate on income above $1,000,000 would rise by roughly a fifth relative to where it stands now. In dollar terms, a household with exactly $1,000,000 above the threshold would owe an additional $20,000 a year in city tax alone if the surtax passes as proposed, on top of whatever state and federal tax already applies.

Moves to discuss with your advisor

High earners in New York City who are already close to establishing residency elsewhere, or who split time between New York and a lower-tax state, may find it worth revisiting the specific day-count and domicile rules with a CPA well before any surtax takes effect, since New York's existing residency audits are already aggressive and a higher marginal rate would only sharpen the incentive to get the analysis right. Business owners or equity holders who control the timing of a large gain may want to discuss, in general terms, how the timing of a sale or a move could interact with a new city tax that does not yet exist and may never pass in its current form. None of this is a reason to act on a proposal before it becomes law.

What to watch

The surtax needs sign-off from the state legislature and the governor, and Hochul's public resistance to new taxes on high earners means the outcome is genuinely uncertain heading into the 2026 state budget process. Whether the proposal survives negotiation intact, gets scaled back, or stalls entirely will determine whether this is a live planning issue for New York City's highest earners or another campaign promise that does not become law.

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