California’s Wealth Tax Arrives (msn.com)
Progressive ideas that originate in California have a habit of spreading. So it’s worth paying attention to legislation moving in Sacramento to establish a wealth tax on high earners and a bounty-hunter scheme for plaintiff attorneys to target alleged tax dodgers.
Democrats introduced the bill last winter, and it will get a hearing Wednesday in the state Assembly as lawmakers scrounge for revenue to fill a projected $68 billion budget hole. Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday will also unveil his budget for the coming year. Democratic legislators are proposing a wealth tax as an alternative to spending restraint.
The bill would impose an annual excise tax of 1.5% on the worldwide net worth of every full- and part-year California resident that exceeds $1 billion, starting this tax year. Come Jan. 1, 2026, the state would tax wealth that exceeds $50 million at a rate of 1% each year, with an additional 0.5% tax on assets valued at more than $1 billion.
Part-time residents would be taxed on a pro rata share of their wealth based on the number of days they spend annually in California. The tax would also apply to nonresidents who have recently left the state. You can check out of the state, but you would still have to pay California’s wealth tax if you do.
The wealth tax would apply to nearly all assets, including shares in a partnership, private-equity interests, artwork and financial assets held offshore. California’s Franchise Tax Board would value assets that aren’t publicly traded. That means private businesses located outside the state could be examined by the board’s auditors and appraisers.
It’s worth noting that Democrats exempted real property from the tax as a favor to their high-end real-estate industry and Hollywood donors. This carve-out would encourage the wealthy to shift more of their investments into real estate. Perhaps Democrats are trying to ameliorate the damage from local mansion taxes in San Francisco and Los Angeles on real-estate sales.
To spread the wealth around to plaintiff-bar donors, the bill would apply the state’s False Claims Act to wealth-tax records and statements. This means plaintiff attorneys could sue affluent individuals on behalf of the state for allegedly under-reporting assets. Plaintiff attorneys would be entitled to a share of the state’s recovery.
The wealth tax would raise an estimated $21.6 billion in revenue annually, assuming no wealth exodus in the state. Yet this is still far less than California’s budget deficit in this fiscal year. Nor does it cover the $27 billion increase in California’s Medicaid spending over the last four years. Medicaid spending this year will swell even more as the state expands eligibility to all undocumented migrants.
Meantime, California’s top effective marginal tax rate on wage income this year is increasing to 14.4% from 13.3% owing to a new law that removes the $145,600 wage ceiling on a 1.1% state employee payroll tax to fund expanded paid family leave. You almost have to wonder if Democrats are trying to drive away more businesses and high earners.
The wealth-tax bill reveals yet again Sacramento’s voracious appetite to levy new taxes to support more spending. The tax-and-spend ratchet never ends. But even California’s wealthy can’t pay for its ever-expanding welfare and government-worker obligations, so don’t be surprised when Democrats eventually target the middle class again too.
This never works. And how the fuck are they going to make people who left the state pay? I think these lawmakers are smoking way, way too much weed.
Destruction is their organizing principle.
The tax would also apply to nonresidents who have recently left the state.
The Eagles had a song about this
joe walsh made his solo even better. that lick kicked every top 40 bubble gum ‘artist’ and rapper straight in the nuts.
Ask me if I care about billionaires. The whole system is FUBAR and our $$ is funny stuff. It is a consequence. Good or bad, Like it or not, right or wrong, when income/wealth inequality gets high enough, bad things can and will happen.
Eat the rich.
That is exactly what the plans are for the incoming illegals to do to YOU.
Willy,
Who do you think is and has been allowing the country to be gutted over the last 40-50 years? The rich, that’s who. Your enemies are .gov, the fed, the rich and politicians. These are the worst of the worst. They have an outsized influence over everything this country is turning into.
GNL, if you literally eat them, you will be poisoned with whatever rot they put in their bodies. Please tell me where I’m wrong.
I definitely don’t want that. 🙂
Lots of them eat real food. It depends on their sex/drug/disease life.
Zoonoses are bad enough, imagine all the fun one gets exposed to from cannibalism. The smell alone is revolting.
Not fan of the filty rich but you know if this is institited it will soon apply to may more people of less wealth until they totally destory amy incentive to work and save. But since they are commies that’s part of the plan. Don’t let your resentment of the wealthy cloud your mimd.
“Ask me if I care about billionaires.”
There you go, you just fell for the trap they set for us. They introduce a new tax and it only applies to billionaires so 99.9 percent of the population could care less and it gets instituted without opposition. Then a year or two latter they lower it to those worth 100 million, then another few years the tax applies to those worth 10 million. Before you know it. It applies to everyone.
This is exactly what they did when they introduced the income tax in 1913, at first it only applied just a few millionaires, and it wasn’t long before it applied to everyone.
It’s going to happen regardless of how I feel about it. My point is, G.R.E.E.D. and envy are both bad. They’re related. When people see obscene wealth, they simply don’t care…take they moni as the ghetto says.
They don’t care. If it impacts them, they might give a fk.
“Eat the rich.” = Envy
Whatever you do, don’t notice the harm G.R.E.E.D. causes.
Yes, greed is a bad thing, but Rich and greed are not the same thing. Both rich and poor can be driven by greed. Yes, there can be those rich greedy bastards that screw over anyone and everyone they can. Every thief and robber is driven by envy and greed, and most of them are poor. And then there are rich people that got that way by hard work and by providing benefit to those that they did business with and did not screw over anyone in the process; how can you claim any of their actions had anything to do with greed?
Greed is evident at all levels from poor to rich.
Who is causing more harm greedy rich or greedy poor? Mic drop.
Absolutely! There will come a day when these blue, shit-hole states will implement an exit tax on everyone. People are leaving Cal, Ill, NY, etc… in a trickle now. Wait until they start leaving tens of thousands every month, taking tax dollars with them.
Passing this act is a sign of desperation on the part of the Ca .gov, imho. It is similar to the market idiocy tax proposed by Bernie and Robert Reich.
The various governments can redefine “rich” as needed when more money is wanted.
California is the test case for the rest of us.
How much slavery will people accept?
Their elections have been stolen since the 80’s.
They don’t resist.
Their beutiful state is being systematically ruined by socialists.
They don’t resist.
They are being taxed into penury by criminals.
They don’t resist.
They accept a suicidal criminal alien invasion.
They don’t resist.
They are us.
America is going to be California if we don’t resist.
Not really. It is just extremely corrupt. It is to dissimilar from the other 49 to be reliable. There are not many lamps remaining in California, just vast darkness.
ANTI-gun laws start in Ca. or NY or NJ …… these are always test beds , then the disease spreads. Just as COVID lockdowns and ” camps ” start in Canada New Zealand first.
But , of course , pointing this shit out in real time as it happens gets you dismissed as , alarmist !
what is g. r. e. e. d. ?
I spell it G.R.E.E.D as a way to get more attention to what I believe is causing the most damage in the country (the world). I believe G.R.E.E.D. is the most destructive human trait. Just think of what the G.R.E.E.D.Y are doing to society. Monopolies are all about G.R.E.E.D. Politicians are all about G.R.E.E.D. Why would people want more power? It allows them to control, correct? What is the ultimate reason for control? I posit that it so those who are in control can “Have it all” to themselves. What is the great reset all about? They tell us we’ll own nothing. Why? So they can have it all. Wanting to have it all = G.R.E.E.D.
ILLEGAL ALIENS, not “undocumented migrants.”
WOGS, not ‘illegal aliens’
Gooks. It literally means “foreigners”. Everybody’s a gook to me no matter WHERE they came from. Fucking gooks.
Illegal aliens, fuckface.
Do they really?
I want a female one.
Hear that rumbling? That is the sound of billionaires stampeding for greener pastures. You really think a billionaire is going to hang around and pay hundreds of millions in wealth taxes each year? Or folks with $50 million in wealth will be willing to pay $500k a year in wealth tax? Haste la vista, baby.
Part of the plan.
The Communist Governors who pursue this logic are either stupid or they are working to help destroy this nation…I think Newsom, like Brandon, works for either Satan or the CCP.
Both. They’ll work for or with anyone who can expand their G.R.E.E.D.
Looks like Bev Hills & LaJolla will become ghost towns. And, every smll biz online store will block sales to CA zip codes.
Please let this happen.
When the resulting fiscal crisis occurs, and the fedgov loses its ability to forever print, with the wealthy gone, to whom will the CA authorities turn to for their rescue? The really wealthy and connected … wealthy Chinese and wealthy Jewish folks is my guess. They will then have the paradise they have always wanted … goy free.
Nothing that happens is by accident.
15% for ss/medi 25% for income tax, 15% for state income tax, 12% for sales tax… every dollar you spend taxed at 62%, how much is enough? I mean, really?