Billionaire Tax Officially Heads to Nov. 3 Ballot(www.sos.ca.gov)
27 pointsby simonpure2 hours ago6 comments
  • telesillaan hour ago
    Azim Premji donates every dollar he makes over 1 billion for the last 20 years.

    Mckenzie Scott is working through donating her share. Same for Melinda Gates, Dustin Moskovitz & Cari Tuna.

    Warren Buffet plans to donate the larger part to charity.

    Let's keep building the good examples so the alternative (power consolidation across generations) is unthinkable for future generations.

    • iamkeithmccoy41 minutes ago
      Good examples are great. But it doesn't solve the problem. The only way to fix this busted economy where inequality is increasing and few, wealthy individuals are gaining insane amounts of political power through spending is systemic change in the structure of our tax base.
      • telesilla38 minutes ago
        Agreed. We could posit that the biggest impact a billionaire could have to improve the world would be to lobby for increased taxes.
  • hsnewman2 hours ago
    In the USA "all men are created equal". Owning money should allow you more representation than not owning money. Companies/institutions should not be allowed to spend money on politics, and a flat tax would solve this.
    • nickdurfean hour ago
      41 of the 56 men who signed the document containing that statement were slave owners.
      • whateveracctan hour ago
        and yet now the constitution bans slavery

        i find the "but the founding fathers had slaves" to just be nihilistic nonsense

        the united states was a manifestation of enlightenment philosophy that persists to this day (despite attacks on it)

        • nickdurfe36 minutes ago
          "and yet now the constitution bans slavery"

          Unless you're a prisoner convicted of a crime. Stating that the founders of the United States owned slaves is not "nihilistic nonsense", it's an important distinction to note that they sought political power for themselves, and no one else. The phrase "all men are created equal" should be interpreted as "all white land-owning men are created equal"

          • pipes28 minutes ago
            But the constitution doesn't say: "all white land-owning men are created equal"

            It said "all men are created equal". It took a long time to get to this point in human history and it's worth defending.

            • amanaplanacanal7 minutes ago
              That was the declaration of Independence, not the Constitution. It has no force of law, but is certainly asperational.
      • decrementalan hour ago
        [dead]
    • apothegm35 minutes ago
      > Owning money should allow you more representation than not owning money.

      Fine, I’ll bite: Why?

    • Catloafdev32 minutes ago
      > Owning money should allow you more representation than not owning money

      The capitalist's manifesto

  • 0xy2 hours ago
    Even if it fails, California has taken a multi billion dollar tax hit from all of the wealth flight as a result of this. Not to mention that those people may take jobs with them, straight to Florida or Texas or other friendlier states.

    These taxes are an abject disaster everywhere they're tried. France tried it and it was extremely bad for them.

    The cash raised from the tax is dwarfed by the wealth flight, every time.

    Napkin math for just the people who have left already over 5 years show $50 billion in lost tax revenue. Probably far more in indirect losses (jobs, consumption, etc).

    • kridsdale1an hour ago
      You need to remember that the proponents of this kind of thing WANT rich assholes to leave. They consider that an environmental social improvement.
    • onemoresoop10 minutes ago
      If you think a few billionaires moving to other states would take the Silicon Valley with them and it would be easy then let's see it play out.
  • Bostonian2 hours ago
    A "one-time" tax to fund recurring health care and educational expenses is an obvious lie.
  • xhkkffbf2 hours ago
    All of the wealth has been taxed before, often multiple times. Adding another layer sure seems like overkill.
  • schacon31 minutes ago
    Love it.

    In fact, we should have expanded it to be a "millionaire tax" where everyone who has a home worth more than $1M needs to pay a one time $50k+ tax to the highly efficient state government. I'm sure they can easily figure out how to sell a small fraction of their home to cover it.

    If there is one thing that history has proven, I think it's how valuable dry taxation is for everyone in the long term.

    • object-a20 minutes ago
      I mean, people already do pay property taxes on homes? So this isn’t a very good retort.
      • schacon14 minutes ago
        In California, it's capped at a knowable amount when you buy the home and pegged at the sale price. You know what it is and what it always will be when the transaction happens. The people whom have owned a house now worth a million for 30 years probably pay a few grand a year and always have. Dry taxing the technical value of their assets today would destroy millions of families. The point is that dry taxation is generally pretty stupid.
        • georgeburdella few seconds ago
          I wouldn’t call it stupid, but it is a policy choice. On the other side, why should Grandma pay 5% of the property taxes as the new couple next door while receiving the same access to public services, while also pushing another family to live farther away?
        • object-a6 minutes ago
          1. The tax is not pegged at the sale price. What prop 13 actually does is limit the amount of appreciation the state can recognize for tax purposes.

          2. There are lots of states/cities in the US that do not cap the appreciation of your house for tax purposes, and I don’t think it destroys millions of families. In fact the California cap is generally seen as a terrible policy because it distorts the housing market