This Mamdani tax scheme is a stealth strike on the American dream

If Mayor Zohran Mamdani gets his way, half of everything New Yorkers work a lifetime for — including their homes, their businesses or farms and their savings — could be stripped away on their deathbeds.  No more Empire State; he’d make this the Expropriation State.Only one thing in life is certain: We all die.Mamdani is exploiting that certainty to close what he claims is a $5.4 billion city budget gap.More than that, he aims to undermine the foundations of American life by attacking wealth accumulation, homeownership and private property, per the radical agenda of the Democratic Socialists of America.Currently, New York is one of a handful of states that imposes a death tax, a 16% levy on estates worth more than $7 million.But the tax wish list Mamdani circulated last week to state legislators and Gov.Kathy Hochul proposed lowering the threshold to a mere $750,000 — which would clobber millions more New Yorkers all across the state with a punishing tax.He would also hike the rate to a whopping 50%, 2½ times the 20% charged in Hawaii and Washington state, the highest estate-tax rates in the country.The worst feature of Mandani’s tax proposal is its built-in “cliff” — meaning that once an estate hits $750,000 in value, the confiscatory 50% rate applies to all assets, not just the amount above that figure.Half the estate gets wiped out, and Albany swoops in to take it.Consider: The average home value in Westchester County right now is $823,340, while the median home price in Nassau County is a staggering $875,000. Even assuming no other assets, the legacies of most Westchester and Nassau homeowners would fall into the tax collector’s hands.Bruce Blakeman, Hochul’s Republican rival for governor in November, quickly pounced on the issue, calling it “the most extreme Death Tax in America.”“Children will lose half the value of their parents’ home and family businesses will have to be sold off just to pay this cruel tax,” he thundered....