Springtime in City Hall can mean many things: pothole-filling news conferences, budget battles, parks department ribbon cuttings.
On Thursday, another of those springtime rites of passage arrived anew, as Mayor Zohran Mamdani released his joint tax return filed with his wife, Rama Duwaji.
Anyone looking for evidence of secret wealth would be disappointed: In 2025, he and his wife reported a total income of roughly $145,000, the bulk of it coming from his state assemblyman’s salary of $131,296.
Ms. Duwaji, who described herself as a graphic designer on their tax returns, reported earning $10,010 (though after deductions for expenses such as art supplies, she netted $8,860).
They reported $1,643 in royalties from Mr. Mamdani’s former career as a musician by the name of Mr. Cardamom. More than half of it came from abroad.
They took the standard deduction of $31,500 and did not itemize any deductions to charity. They reported receiving $1,951 in interest, dividends and capital gains.
They are expecting a tax refund exceeding $7,000.
Mr. Mamdani, 34, grew up a child of the Manhattan elite, his mother an Oscar-nominated movie director, his father a tenured Columbia professor. But his tax returns show no signs of his parents’ success filtering down to his bank account just yet.
The mayor’s tax return showed that his income was largely unchanged from the previous year, when he filed as an individual (he and Ms. Duwaji were married in February 2025) and reported $131,398 in income from his job as a state legislator. That year, he earned another $1,267 in music royalties.
The City Council speaker, Julie Menin, said on Thursday she would not be releasing her tax returns. Ms. Menin, a wealthy Upper East Sider, said she was following precedent set by prior speakers including Adrienne Adams and Corey Johnson, whom she said declined to release their returns. But Mr. Johnson did issue his 2017 return to the press, during his first year in the leadership role.
Mr. Mamdani’s tax returns contained none of the splash of some of his predecessors’, particularly those released by former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, a billionaire whose staff would every year usher the media into his accountant’s office, where they would learn how many homes he owned (at one point, they numbered 12).
Mr. Mamdani, in contrast, lived with his wife in a rent-stabilized apartment in Astoria in Queens before moving to Gracie Mansion in January. His financial disclosure statement also said he owns property in Uganda.
The tax returns for Mr. Bloomberg’s successor, Bill de Blasio, were more anodyne.
During his first year as mayor, Mr. Mamdani’s predecessor, Eric Adams, put off releasing his tax returns for months, a situation he blamed in part on his hiring an accountant who he said subsequently became homeless. He ultimately released them that October.
Dana Rubinstein covers New York City politics and government for The Times.
The post Mamdani’s Tax Return: $1,600 From Rapping and $131,000 From Politics appeared first on New York Times.
