Unpaid property taxes skyrocket in NYC while AG James goes after Trump

Unpaid New York City property taxes are expected to skyrocket to a record high this fiscal year while New York Attorney General Letitia James focuses her attention on former President Donald Trump.

The unpaid taxes are projected to amount to $880 million by the end of June and mark a more than 30% jump from three years ago. The main reason for the high taxes is that officials do not have the power to enforce the punishments for not paying the fees.

“It’s not just the absolute dollar amount that I think should worry us all,” Preston Niblack, the city’s finance commissioner, said earlier this month. “[People are] realizing there are no consequences for not paying your property taxes. That just can’t be allowed to continue.”

City officials blamed the problem on the end of a program from the pandemic that punished the borrowers who turned delinquent on their payments. The program expired in March 2022 and was not reauthorized. However, the city’s finance department is allegedly working to bring the program back.

The program stated that homeowners who were delinquent on housing payments for more than three years could lose the house to the city in order to repay the debt. For some other properties, the threshold was one year instead of three.

James has slammed the program in the past, claiming it was able to “quickly turn a relatively small tax lien into an overwhelming financial burden, eventually pushing homeowners into foreclosure,” according to Bloomberg.

The numbers come as the overall vacancy rate for Manhattan business complexes remains high at 22.5% in November 2023. The two highest debtors in New York are a 16-unit rental building in Brooklyn that owes $52.2 million, and another is an apartment complex that owes $24.7 million in the Bronx. 

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It also comes as James continues to focus her attention on prosecuting Trump amid his legal troubles, including his $364 million payment for committing decades of business fraud via his real estate empire. The $364 million sticker price has now been reduced to $175 million.

James had threatened to seize Trump’s signature tower, Trump Tower, if he could not pay the bond.