Mamdani’s lawfare plan targeting the feds and NYC businesses risks the Big Apple’s future

Whatever tax hikes he gets, Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s plans to hire hundreds of new city lawyers and auditors guarantee fresh pain for city businesses.

One hint: On Friday he ordered “compliance warnings” to 56,000 employers, plus a “new data-driven strategy” to micromanage how those businesses comply with paid-time-off laws.

Large employers can eat those costs; mom-and-pop shops, not so much.

The mayor means to spend $33 million to hire 200 new city lawyers and 100 support staff for the city’s Law Department, plus 50 added Department of Finance auditors.

He claims the lawyers are needed to fight tort lawsuits and so save the city $125 million; if that proves true, we look forward to praising him for it.

But the added firepower could easily go to attacks outlines by transition adviser Lina Khan, who claimed the city could do a lot more enforcement against businesses with imaginative readings of existing statutes.

City Hall’s lawfare strategy also reportedly involves directly representing or funding legal defense for immigrants facing deportation.

Expect the mayor’s new auditors to be deployed to extort high-income earners and large corporations with the goal of extracting hundreds of millions more — and if that drives away a good chunk of the city’s tax base, he’ll no doubt consider it a win for equality.

New York’s corporate taxes are the nation’s highest and city businesses face the highest combined tax rate in the country; in fiscal year 2025 the city collected $7.4 billion in corporate taxes and $3.6 billion from its unincorporated business tax — but Mamdani means to bleed the private sector more.

Beware: The Partnership for the City of New York reports that Wall Street firms fed up with Gotham’s high-tax, business-hostile policies are already fleeing to Texas.

If Mamdani loses this game of chicken, he won’t suffer: It’s the Big Apple’s economy that will crash and burn.