Beyond a reasonable level, I think most taxes are about punishing people you don't like in addition to increasing tax revenues. Facts might hurt their ability to sell this to reasonable people, but I suspect it'll pass on the basis of it punishing "bad" people.
This paper examines the revenue and migration impact of the 2026 California Billionaire Tax Act, a one-time 5 percent tax on the worldwide net worth of individuals exceeding $1 billion. Using data from the Forbes Billionaire List, news reports detailing the residential real estate holdings of California billionaires, and public announcements of billionaire departures from the state, we estimate the behavioral response and associated revenue loss to this new tax using several different methodologies. Even before accounting for reductions in other tax bases such as the income tax, we estimate that the Act will collect approximately $30 billion (range $28 to 36 billion), less than a third of the $100 billion projected by Galle et al. (2025). This range accounts for the publicly confirmed taxpayer migration that has already eliminated nearly 30 percent of the Act's wealth tax base, applies a litigation-survival discount to the remaining base, and is validated by the wealth tax base elasticity literature. We estimate that California's billionaires contribute $3.3–5.8 billion annually in state income taxes. The present value of permanently lost income tax collections from departures more than offsets the one-time wealth tax revenue, yielding a net present value of negative $38.9 billion. Across 100,000 simulated revenue and discount rate combinations, 85 percent of plausible outcomes produce a negative net present value of state revenues.
But Ro Khanna, AOC, and others told me that it would fix everything? They wouldn't lie to me, would they?!?!
You are misrepresenting what they have said because you cannot construct a convincing argument based on what they have actually said.
Not taxing the filthy rich is economic and societal suicide.
Tax the rich.
BTW I am relatively rich and am happy paying taxes as I understand taxes fund the structures essential to building and growing my wealth and a stable prosperous and pleasant economy and society.
If you dont like taxes go somewhere there are none- oh yes but that's right, you won't, because you are an all talk no walk Libertarian hypocrite...and you don't want to live in Somalia or any other wretched hellhole that has little or no taxes and little or no functional government.
But you're evading US taxes. You're okay with taxes as long as the money circulates within your own locality. It's quite selfish really.
I do not believe in paying taxes to an empire that does not give me a vote.
I am happy paying taxes to the NZ government where I do get a vote and will soon hopefully see a Socialist government elected.
Seriously? You want a vote? You want to be a PRC proxy but you want to be able to vote?
Lmao don’t worry he ducked and dodged my comment with citations because he doesn’t have an actual logic based scientifically sound answer.
He lives off the idea that if his country doesn’t bother anyone they won’t bother them which is what has led us into World Wars over history. I mean he thinks socialism works in a free country….. but also can’t point at it because the western socialist country’s are collapsing as the U.S. tells them to carry their weight and the others well the USSR is gone Cuba is practically dead and the Nordics actually have heavily pivoted away from socialism since the 80s
An exchange on New Zealand social media today...
Trumps America is increasingly seen as a despotic rogue state tyranny...sponsoring war crimes and genocide.
It's not "Trump's" America, first of all. It's just America. The people are who vote Democrat are unassimilated migrants and elections would not be competitive if they hadn't been subverting our borders and undermining the rule of law for decades. The fact that Trump still won despite such massive waves of immigration makes him doubly legitimate. Socialists are lying treasonous thieves and we never owed them a peaceful democratic election in the first place. If they want to remove Trump from office they have to kill me.
It should be obvious at this point that Americans don't care what other people think. The reason France is getting killed and burned and raped is because they cared about the international community's opinion. Europeans and blue states and you and Canada have all the "education" and ZERO common sense.
You cannot refute what I do say and so always misrepresent what I have said.
Thus you are a confirmed Troll.
Where did I ever say I want to be a China proxy?
Complete and Utter Fucking Deafening S I L E N C E
Because I have never said that.
You cannot refute what I do say and so always misrepresent what I have said.
Thus you are a confirmed Troll.
What is Labour, what is any leftist party, if not a machine for selling out the country to communism? They're in complete agreement on every issue.
What is National, what is any right wing conservative party, if not a machine for selling out the country to US imperialism?
China is not a communist economy - it is a mixed economy with state capitalism and free enterprise.
Get your facts up to date before spouting absurd McCarthy era nonsense.
The Commies are not coming- they are Gone!
Look at California's current track record with government spending. Do you think this "one-time" thing will actually fix anything? That's a ridiculous thing to believe. The state is terrible with money, large-scale projects, and general programs. Unless you fix that, then giving them more money just throws it straight into a fire.
Prop 40 could raise up to $100 billion in 5 years, according to the very generous California Budget and Policy Center (CBPC) conditions. The conservative-leaning Hoover Institute put the number at $40 billion. What the money would go to in the CBPC own words costs 10s of billions a year in medical coverage
Furthermore, this a state with a record surplus just a couple of years ago now needs this funding to
Lets say it passes and they burn through the money like they are talking about. You wanna know what will be a wild and crazy thing to have to explain away? Why you spent billions on giving healthcare to illegal immigrants. Within Cali this already has caused huge issues just a couple of years ago but now they want billionaires to help fund and reestablish the program so it isnt even taking care of American Citizens.
Finally, they want to throw billions a year at their food assistance programs, but while they serve a noble cause part of the reason that some states like Cali are having funding cut or frozen is that their own reported payment error rate is OVER 6%, and guess what in a time when American families are hurting, SNAP and other benefits are supposed to help American Citizens and lawful permanent residents. Instead of getting their house in order to help the people that elect them they are moving on to the next thing and leaving those very people behind yet again.
Everyone in California just laughs and doesn't believe the government can get anything done.
But I don't understand why they keep voting Democrat.
Just own goal central.... its like they think that one of these days itll work out but honestly at what cost? They have been losing big businesses that they need to employ people as well as reap their taxes!
I spoke about the People Mover in LA to my class yesterday. If you don't know what that boondoggle is, look it up. Everyone just guffawed at the idea. A classroom full of college students... young teenagers to 20-somethings. Everyone knows the gov't is a joke. But I bet they still vote Dem if they vote at all.
OMG, at Dulles International, as part of Trump's revamp of the city, he and the airport have agreed to upgrade and get rid of the terrible, hellish peoplemovers lol! Are yalls a train like thing or a giant idk car transporter thing.... we have the car thing that looks like a NASA rover!
In LA the People Mover is supposed to be a short-range light rail system that moves people between the LAX airport and nearby transportation hubs/stops. It's been delayed multiple times and cost overruns of billions of dollars. It was supposed to be ready for the 2026 FIFA world cup, but it wasn't. Now they're projecting it to open in 2027, before the 2028 olympics, but few people believe that.
California is the master of own-goals.
I'll be voting against this measure in November.... but I wouldn't be surprised if it passes. The average Californian is super oblivious about economics... even the super smart engineers.
We’ve discussed before my impression that engineers are particularly bad at thinking about economics.
I wonder if we concluded anything about why that is. I'm tempted to say they're not used to thinking about behavioral responses, but they do think about that when it comes to systems design and security. Maybe it's because they're not accustomed to marginal thinking, or not accustomed to thinking about heterogeneity (including heterogeneity in preferences)
Incentives are a different kind of thinking than security vulnerabilities.
I think they can’t grok the subjective value foundation because they are so accustomed to objective systems.
Why is the most productive competitive and fast advancing economy in the world governed by a poliburo that is composed of a majority of Engineers?
Because you don't understand economics and think free markets are all that are required for a good economy- wrong - good government is also essential.
The worlds post industrial economy infrastructure is being built by China- with its politburo composed of mostly trained Engineers.
Libertarians do not understand economics.
Ummm so fun fact "most productive competitive and fast advancing economy" isnt a factual statement its just an opinion. There are no metrics that are scientifically sound for a statement like that. Also, when your country has a billion people, and your economy is so, so, so small and behind proportionally to other countries, increasing your GDP or reaching levels that regular countries across the world have would naturally make the economy more productive, competitive, etc., because the huge population number naturally pulls everything up.
Your own statement is an own goal because it's like last year the best currency in the world, whose value increased the most, was the Russian Ruble, and it wasn't like their economy was growing; rather, it was internal interest rate pressure. South Sudan had the best-performing GDP percentage growth, with the numbers ranging from 24-44% increase, and it isn't like that country is experiencing any sort of boon. The same can be said for North Korea, which over the last 3 years has had one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, but that doesn't mean they are actually doing anything that would drive people to want to move there for a better life; rather, they are just improving from the absolute bottom of the bin.
All you have to observe is who's trying to move where. The purpose of an economy isn't to make large quantities of stuff. The purpose is to improve quality of life, which is a much more complex and inherently subjective thing that central planners are hopeless at producing.
No one is trying to move to North Korea and far more Chinese people would live abroad (if other countries would let them) than the number of people who would move to China (if China would let them).
Of course, on net people are still trying to move to America from just about everywhere in the world at greater rates than Americans are trying to move anywhere else.
Ok, boomer
Demonstrating your inability to engage in a reasoned contest of ideas because your ideas are indefensible nonsense in such a context.
Stay in your circle jerking echo chamber of delusion because you can't deal with real the world and reasoned dialogue.
It's probably a lower number still. The only thing this would apply to is income generated in California that is documented on tax records as well as assets physically located in California, both real and personal. Most rich people are smart enough to park their bank accounts, homes and assets outside of the state already, such as Nevada, to avoid such taxation attachments. So whoever came up with the new tax estimate probably didn't account for tax planning behavior already in place. As for the world wide asset figure, that's a hard legal climb to make. While you might have jurisdiction of the person in-state, federal tax law trumps and is well established how international assets are treated and taxed. CA tax laws have historically followed the same, so a federal court will likely throw out the attempt via lack of jurisdiction on assets and encroachment of state law into federal law territory.
I think they are attempting to account for more than in-state assets.
Oh they definitely are. My point is, they won't get it.
The truth is, the richer they are, the less tax they pay. Politicians work for them; that's where the cynicism lies, since the laws protect millionaires. These laws were created to protect their wealth, and the middle and lower classes can literally go to hell.
Taxes are about funding the infrastructure that makes life and business within a jurisdiction attractive.
Good government uses taxes to build a legal system and other infrastructure essential to maximising economic and civic quality of life.
If you don't like it go somewhere there are no taxes and see how you quality of life is- yeah you won't do that because where there are no taxes life is crap.
Libertarians are just simply naive whinging spoiled brats who think a good life does not require a good government. WRONG!
There has never been and never can be a good life where there is not good government- and good government requires some taxation.