Wealth tax criticized by billionaires and Gavin Newsom would levy a one-time 5% tax on residents worth over $1bn

Wealth tax criticized by billionaires and Gavin Newsom would levy a one-time 5% tax on residents worth over $1bn

A popular proposal in California to impose a wealth tax on billionaires has gained enough signatures to qualify for the ballot in November, state officials announced on Wednesday.

The news is set to intensify an already heated debate around the tax, which has pitted tech moguls and the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, against the labor union backing the measure.

The California Billionaire Tax Act, colloquially known as the billionaire tax, would levy a one-time 5% tax on any California resident worth more than $1bn. The proposal is backed by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW) as a means of funding California’s strained healthcare, food assistance and education programs.

    • sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      0·
      12 days ago

      Such proposals have raised predictable outrage from the rich, along with threats that they’ll move elsewhere where taxes are lower and dire predictions that their fellow plutocrats will refuse to move in.

      Yet there’s scant evidence for these consequences. In fact, when Massachusetts passed a “millionaires tax” in 2023, conservatives claimed the rich would flee. But two years later, they haven’t — and Massachusetts has collected $5.7 billion for infrastructure and public education. -Robert Reich

      I was listening to NPR a day or two ago. They were talking about a shortage of mansions in the Bay Area. While at the same time talking about a lack of affordable housing. We’re seeing the long term effects of not taxing wealth appropriately.

    • Brkdncr@lemmy.world
      0·
      12 days ago

      I heard It would be 25 years before any negative effects would be felt, assuming they leave the state.

    • Jax@sh.itjust.works
      0·
      11 days ago

      I think sending a message of ‘look what we can do with just 5% of their wealth’ is important, provided anything actually positive comes from those funds.

      That’s where I’m skeptical. I’ve worked as a contractor for the state for most of my professional career and am now a state employee. The answer to the question of ‘Is there corruption in CA state govt?’ is… well, let’s just take the pension fund management application as an example; mycalpers.

      I never got a straight answer for just how much that application cost. I don’t work there anymore so I doubt I ever will, but the only answer I really trusted is that the total comes to around 800 million.

      Let me repeat that with emphasis. 800 million. The best part here is that at least 400 of that 800 million was completely wasted on a first iteration of the app that was scrapped entirely. Thanks to Accenture, who apparently had Sushi Thursdays or some shit during the entire app creation cycle.

      You take one look at the app and will realize it should never have cost that much money.

      So yes, it’s something. Whether that will play out the way you or I think it should is another thing entirely. This is all assuming it even gets passed.

  • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
    0·
    11 days ago

    Even if it passes, it will be hung up in courts for years and never end up getting paid.

    It’s dumb to have a “one time tax fee” retroactive based on where you lived like a year ago. It should just be a yearly tax.

    • kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world
      0·
      11 days ago

      They want the payout but without losing the billionaires. If they make it retroactive and dont make it recurring, the billionaires have less incentive/urgency to leave. They’re already on the hook for the one time fee and it isn’t an immediate concern that it would happen again. I’m sure that is the logic they’re going with. Dunno if that will harm their case when this inevitably goes to court though.

  • homes@piefed.worldEnglish
    0·
    12 days ago

    Until it makes California universal healthcare a reality, it’s a hoax and bullshit specifically designed to make billionaires and trillionaire richer

    Go on, and tell me how you’re wrong. No California has come close to winning the argument for nearly 40 years. Because it is bullshit.

  • nonentity@sh.itjust.works
    0·
    12 days ago

    Financial obesity is an existential threat to any society that tolerates it, and needs to cease being celebrated, rewarded, and positioned as an aspirational goal.

    Corporations are the only ‘persons’ which should be subjected to capital punishment, but trillionaires should be forced to transition into billionaires, and billionaires should be euthanised through taxation.

  • oyo@lemmy.zip
    0·
    12 days ago

    But they’ll leave the state!

    Good, get these fucking leeches out of here.

    • homes@piefed.worldEnglish
      0·
      12 days ago

      I did, but I got my posts and comments deleted for my effort

      An uprising requires more than simple discontent

  • Hello_there@fedia.io
    0·
    12 days ago

    I don’t care what the money goes to. As long as it takes one smidge of power away from them I am in favor.