Billionaire Tax Act Rattles Golden State |
Billionaires have been fleeing California because of a ballot measure seeking to impose a one-time tax of 5% on their wealth. Promoted by unions, endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT), and doing well in gathering signatures to be on the November ballot, this citizen-initiated ballot measure has support by 50% of voters plus another 14% who are undecided but lean “yes,” according to an early poll.
This Billionaire Tax Act would be retroactive to Jan. 1, 2026, and many billionaires are not waiting around for the election results. Mark Zuckerberg, one of the top five wealthiest persons in the world who founded Facebook which is headquartered in California, has reportedly already decided to move to Florida, where there is not even an income or estate tax.
Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, venture capitalist David Sacks, and Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick have also reportedly moved out of California. There are more than 200 billionaires in California, the most of any state, and their total wealth exceeds $2 trillion.
Wealth, including unrealized capital gains on stock ownership, has never been taxed before. But the California ballot measure would both revise its state constitution and enact a new law imposing this tax, which could have cost Zuckerberg more than $10 billion dollars had he remained a resident of........