Witkoff repays nearly $78,000 after Wall Street Journal inquiry
The new pied-à-terre tax targets homes worth $5 million or more whose owner’s primary residence is outside New York City — part of Mamdani’s campaign promise to increase taxes on the wealthy. To carry out the implementation, the city has added new positions focused on checking whether properties are second homes, as well as evaluating appeals.
To apply for the existing primary-residence abatement, apartment owners must certify to their building’s condo board or property manager that their units are their primary residence. The board or manager then annually attests to the city that the information is up-to-date and accurate.
“It’s a really flawed system,” said Paul Brensilber, president of property management company Jordan Cooper. Typically, property agents send out questionnaires to owners annually for updated information, but some go unanswered, he said.
The Mamdani administration has said it would strengthen verification efforts to weed out owners who shouldn’t be getting the primary-residence abatement. Earlier this year, in an effort to ameliorate the city’s budget crunch, the administration also said it would strengthen those verification efforts. So far the audits have led to the removal of 10,000 apartments from the program, according to city officials.
Trump administration special envoy Steve Witkoff and several other wealthy property owners are getting an expensive surprise courtesy of the new tax, the Journal reported. As the city increases scrutiny of where the property owners actually reside, some face losing a separate abatement that shaves thousands of dollars off their annual tax bills — premised on the idea that their New York City apartments were primary residences.
Witkoff, 69 years old, has made a waterfront estate in Miami Beach his primary residence since 2019, when he registered to vote there and filed a declaration of domicile — a Florida document attesting that his permanent and primary residence was in the state, the review found. His wife, who is separated from him, lived in their Manhattan apartment until 2023, when she relocated to her own apartment in Miami Beach, records show. The Manhattan property continued to receive the abatement every year since then, according to the review.
Witkoff recently lost the $24,000-a-year abatement on his multimillion-dollar Manhattan apartment — a perk his representatives said he didn’t realize he was receiving. A spokeswoman for Witkoff said that after being contacted by The Wall Street Journal, he paid the city nearly $78,000 for the years he wasn’t eligible for the abatement.
Witkoff and his wife never received notice from the condo’s property manager that they needed to report that their primary residence had changed to Florida, said his lawyer, Robert Pollack. “The continued application of the abatement here was inadvertent and resulted from that gap in process, not from any misrepresentation by the owners,” Pollack said.
Aside from losing the perk, Witkoff will also have to pay $101,000 annually to the city to cover the new pied-à-terre surcharge, bringing his total property tax bill to more than double what he pays now.
A Wall Street Journal analysis of public records in New York and Florida — which has seen an influx of wealthy New Yorkers in recent years — identified other property owners in similar situations. Some Sunshine State residents had been receiving the city’s abatement for years despite being ineligible for it, the review found.
Lee Millstein, an executive at real-estate investment firm Cerberus Capital Management, will likely lose a $13,000 annual abatement he receives on his Manhattan pad. Voting and property records show that he and his wife make their primary residence at a waterfront mansion in Coral Gables, Florida, that they purchased for $22 million in 2020. Since 2022, Millstein has received a homestead exemption reserved for primary homes, which reduces the taxes he pays on his Florida mansion. He received the New York primary-residence abatement during at least part of that time as well, records show. He didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Ruben Kliksberg, chief executive of hedge fund Redwood Capital Management, moved from New York City to Golden Beach, Florida, in 2022 and continued to receive the abatement on his Manhattan apartment while also receiving the homestead exemption on his Florida home. The abatement reduced the most recent annual tax bill on his Manhattan apartment by $14,000. A spokesman for Kliksberg said he inadvertently received the abatement because of a clerical error. He has corrected the information and is making all necessary payments, the spokesman said.
Investor Ronald Olin, a registered Florida voter, also simultaneously received the abatement on his Manhattan condo and a homestead exemption on his waterfront condo in Sarasota, Florida. Records show he received both perks at the same time since at least 2018. Olin said he and his wife were unaware they were receiving the New York City abatement.
The Wall Street Journal review found clues the city itself had on hand: the property tax bills it sent to Kliksberg, Millstein and Olin were addressed to out-of-state residences.
Last month a state judge ordered the city to redo its rollout of the pied-à-terre tax after a group of homeowners sued. The city subsequently appealed, putting the ruling temporarily on hold. A New York City mayoral spokesman declined to comment.