Marty Golden admits to the NY TIMES that he gave real estate tax breaks to certain rich developers, condo-owners and tenants in Manhattan

NY Times finally catches up to Marty Golden’s tax give-away to rich Manhattanites almost a month after it was reported in the Daily News  

—  AND  —  

Dare I say it ?   —   Yes, I do.

HERE !!!

According to the New York Times, “The rarefied few who can afford to shell out tens of millions of dollars for an apartment in one of the gleaming new condominiums being built across New York City may be searching for luxury, but in some cases they will find an unexpected perk: a break on real estate taxes that can mean tax bills as low as $96 a month....” (See “BIG DEAL – How the Rich Get a Big Real Estate Tax Break” by Julie Satow, 7/12/13, NY Times [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/14/realestate/how-the-rich-get-a-big-real-estate-tax-break.html?pagewanted=2&smid=tw-nytimes&pagewanted=all&_r=0]).

The typically tone deaf Republican-Conservative State Senator from Bay Ridge, readily admitted to authoring the special bill that authorized the giveaway of NYC revenue to a small class of rich people  —  “Yes, we allowed an exemption,” said Senator Martin J. Golden, who sponsored the bill with Assemblyman Keith L. T. Wright, “but I am a proponent of the 421A program, and I believe it was the right thing to do.” (Interestingly, Assemblyman Wright said that the version of the bill that he had introduced in the NYS Assembly did not contain this special tax exemption, and that it was added later without any explanation or discussion in the NYS Senate version of the bill.)

The Times only gave a little space to critics of Golden’s tax giveaway, but it was there. “While some may question whether buyers of multimillion-dollar homes deserve breaks on city taxes, there is no doubt that the benefits are lucrative....”  And, one property was singled out as particularly undeserving of any tax break whatsoever —   “The exemptions have given some market observers pause, particularly in the case of One57, which was already under way when the legislation was passed and presumably would have been built even without the tax break. ‘The idea of the program was that tax subsidies can be an important tool to create residential housing and affordable housing that otherwise wouldn’t be built,’ said Vicki Been, the faculty director of the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy. ‘I don’t see how giving a tax break to a building like One57 helps either of those goals’.”

(For complete coverage of the two Daily News reports and a fuller discussion of the issues related to State Senator Martin Golden’s tax giveaway to Manhattan Real Estate developers, and to prospective super-wealthy condo-owners and tenants, see my Tuesday, June 18th post, “Daily News Twice Spotlights Brooklyn's Marty Golden for sponsoring State Senate bill for tax breaks on certain Manhattan billionaire and multi-millionaire condos and rental units” below or at [http://galewynmassey.blogspot.com/2013/06/daily-news-spotlights-brooklyns-marty.html].)