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.

    • Jax@sh.itjust.works
      4·
      5 hours 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
    15·
    8 hours 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
      6·
      8 hours 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.

      • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
        1·
        6 hours ago

        Nothing like the threat of “we’ve decided once again to take some money from you because you lived here before” to make them not up and move.

        Not that they’ll bother, because most won’t pay it.

  • oyo@lemmy.zip
    34·
    16 hours ago

    But they’ll leave the state!

    Good, get these fucking leeches out of here.

  • Hello_there@fedia.io
    67·
    19 hours 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.

    • takeda@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      9·
      12 hours ago

      What if all of that would go to the first Nazi trillionaire?

      But seriously, I agree with that sentiment.

  • nonentity@sh.itjust.works
    9·
    14 hours 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.

    • Whats_your_reasoning
      8·
      12 hours ago

      Tangentially, I’d really love it if people stopped calling rich people “elites.” It reaffirms their belief that they’re better than the rest of us. Let’s stop stroking their egos and call them the leeches they are.

      • chonglibloodsport
        1·
        6 hours ago

        Elites are not people, they’re groups. More specifically, they’re insular and well-connected groups with outsized power (relative to group population). They share a common interest and they cooperate to further that interest at the expense of the common good. Often these groups are made up of billionaires but they also include the politically connected as well as artists and entertainers/influencers.

        That was the older meaning of the word elite, anyway. More recently it’s come to denote individuals with exceptional skill. This version has been pervasive in the sports and gaming communities. I personally wouldn’t worry about the latter definition influencing the former. If you need to clarify, you can use terms like political or business elite.

        I think it’s really important for people to not give up on this term because it encompasses more than just wealth. Elites can form in any group, as a breakaway subgroup that works against the interests of the main group. Feminist Jo Freeman wrote a famous paper informed by her experiences witnessing the formation of elites within the feminist movement.

    • homes@piefed.worldEnglish
      3·
      18 hours ago

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

      An uprising requires more than simple discontent

    • sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      32·
      19 hours 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
      41·
      18 hours ago

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