66
California ‘billionaire tax’ makes ballot despite opposition from tech moguls
(www.theguardian.com)
One time 5%, that's like a bandaid on a severed artery
this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2026
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Tax the ever living fuck out of them like they did pre-Reagan.
Yeah, a 95% marginal tax rate and both a massive inheritance and transfer of assets while alive (not sure how it's called) taxes would solve most of the problem.
Gift taxes
(not sure how it's called)
I think you are looking for "wealth tax"
Also the US has inheritance tax that kicks in once an estate exceeds 5million dollars. The problem is that you can bypass that limit by establishing a trust that holds all your assets. If before your death you put everything over 5million in a trust (baisically a legal contract that acts like a container for assets that a lawyer oversees to make sure the contract is executed) then it stops being your wealth and starts being the trust's wealth. A trust can have any arbitrary set of rules, for example it could be as simple as: wisely invest my assets and pay out an income to my surviving decendants from the intrest and their decendants. Or ot could be: while i live pay me out, on my death distribute everything left to charities my children are ungreatful brats and don't get anything. Really it can be anything.
Those are really useful if for example you have 3 unmarried adults who want to share property and make sure property rights transfer between them until everyone is dead then the trust is disolved and the property goes to: favorite niece or something. It can also be useful to allow joint ownership of regulated items that otherwise can't be jointly owned (e.g. machine guns) they are also more powerful than a will if for example you want to make sure your grandkids get college money, or dont get any money until 25, while their parents get nothing and so on... anything you can put on a contract can rule the trusts assets.
So realistically the solution here is to cap how much value can be in a trust, say 5million dollars, and limit how many trusts an individual can be a benneficiary of, lets say 3 trusts at a time.
Hell yeah! Let’s make it happen!
taxing inheritence and transfer of assets
Wouldn't happen in CA. As blue as they seem, prop 13 makes them basically a feudal society with actual landed gentry. I'm not making that up.
It almost looks like it‘s designed to fail. Probably all of those billionaires will be richer by the end of the year this tax comes into effect. Meanwhile the money raised from it won‘t be enough to solve all that many issues. It‘s not really supposed to but billionaires and their outlets will keep telling us how „taxing the rich was tried and failed!!!“ Mark my words.
Oh no, but the billionaires might leave the state! That would be a shame, not to have them assfucking our politicians. A damn shame.
They would still assfuck your politicians. Elon Musk spent $90 million on a judge race in Wisconsin.
Musk is both mentally ill, how do I say now, mentally handicapped, I"m serious, he is what we would call a fucking retard in my day, I don't use that phrase now though, oh yeah, he's also compromised, blackmailed, and a fucking nazi.
My dude don't blame that fuck on mental illness. Plenty of us crazies ain't Nazis. Plenty of you "sane" folk are.
Every state where, "the money goblins will leave if X!!!" is threatened, that state ends up having more millionaire/billionaires after X happens.
And when they "leave" they don't leave, they buy another vacation home, their business interests stay put.
And of course, wherever they are, they aren't paying taxes. And you are paying their energy /water bills.
I don't know about their business interests moving. A lot of them incorporate in Nevada and Delaware to get out of specific ~~taxes~~ social obligations.
How bout we go back to the pre Regan annual 70% wealth tax?
These motherfuckers are still going to be billionaires after this modest tax.
it isn't going to pass because they are spending millions of dollars on ads opposing it because that will be cheaper than paying taxes.
And stupid people will be like well I saw an ad saying it would affect ME down the road
Remember that proposition about making gig workers employees? So they could get bennies? Yeah. That still sucks.
Lyft and Uber spent like 200 mil on ads, and it worked.
the ads' whole purpose was to confuse people. hell i was confused what yes and no meant on that proposition, and i had ballotpedia and the voting guide open when i was marking my absentee.
I knew exactly what it was and how the vote would go with how many ads were being shoved down everyone's throats. People don't have time to decipher the BS, and those ads definitely did the job.
Why would the billionaires pay 5% when they can spend less then 1% flooding the tvs and mailboxes of Californiana with ads that this will destroy the economy?
Anything less than their severed heads is not enough.
For California's next trick, I'd like to put the abolishment of tech moguls on the ballot.
If this is too extreme, then I'm okay with bringing back "the stocks", so long as we get to throw tomatoes at them.
What you are probably thinking of is actually called a pillory. Stocks attached to your ankles, not the neck and wrists. I suppose they still allowed for the chucking of spoiled produce and eggs.
Þank you for þat clarification. I, too, had þe distinction wrong.
It's a good start.
[...] but powerful organizations in the state have also stepped in to oppose it. Those include the California Teachers Association, the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California, the California Medical Association and Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California.
Why the fuck is Planned Parenthood against a billionaire tax?!
Won't everyone just leave?
Forgot the /s
I'm dead serious that's what I would do. That's what I'm doing to Australia as a whole to avoid our tax rate
During a talk at the Stanford Graduate School of Business in April, he said: “I say to everybody: ‘Move to California. Don’t leave.’ It’s the highest taxes in the world, but it’s OK.”
From the article
The full quote, since you left out some relevant details like who "he" is:
Notably, Jensen Huang, the billionaire CEO of Nvidia, has said he’s fine with the proposed tax and that he chose to live in Silicon Valley. During a talk at the Stanford Graduate School of Business in April, he said: “I say to everybody: ‘Move to California. Don’t leave.’ It’s the highest taxes in the world, but it’s OK.”