They’re not really after ‘the rich’

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani claims that the city budget has a $5.4 billion shortfall, and one of the ways he proposes to close that gap is by changing the state’s estate tax laws.

At present, New York imposes a death tax of 16% on estates worth more than $7 million. Mamdani wants to lower that threshold to estates worth only $750,000, he’s proposing increasing the tax to 50%, and the tax would be imposed not only on the assets in excess of $750,000 but on the entirety of the estate.