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Billionaire tax continues to trail as many Californians vote to spare the state’s ultra-rich stars (www.latimes.com)
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Proposition 40, which would impose a one-time 5% tax on California billionaires to help fund healthcare, appeared headed for defeat, though votes were still being counted.

Opponents raised hundreds of millions of dollars to fight the measure, far outspending supporters, who argued the tax could help offset federal healthcare cuts.

The campaign also faced opposition from Gov. Gavin Newsom, teachers, business groups and others, while voters weighed concerns about taxing assets and the possibility that billionaires could leave California.

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[–] 0 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

The reason that the billionaire tax failed is that it’s stupid. Taxing unrealized gain is wrong in most voters minds. There is a much much better solution.

All billionaires hold their wealth in stock, which until they sell it is an unrealized gain - meaning that money is not being actively used by the owner monetarily. Their superpower is leveraging against those stocks to get a loan to buy the $500 M yacht (looking at you Bezos). Currently that is tax free. I will argue to my grave that getting a loan against stock held is now a realized gain and should be taxed as such.

TL/DR; if you tell the voters billionaires should be taxed when they get a loan against their stocks to buy a mansion, yacht or election they would vote for this in a heartbeat.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 hours ago*

    I think this is one of many possible adjustments, but I agree with your point that a lot of people had questions about how thoroughly this had been planned, and didn't quite trust the current version. That's how I felt (although I voted for it anyway).

    Anyway, I agree with you that there will be other versions of this, and some version will eventually pass.

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