dmart90 said:

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Let's say there are 200 billionaires in Cali.

And they're average net worth is $11.25B (which is admittedly high).

A 5% net worth tax nets them $112.5B.

Cali's '26 budget is $321B.

So that "one time" tax covers ~4 months worth of state expenditures.

Idiots.

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I've done this same math at the US level with real data.
I will try to find that post.

People who propose billionaire wealth taxes as a means to solving a spending problem are crooks or morons, and probably a mix of both.
Ignorance of math, and envy are a dangerous combination.

Ag with kids said:

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94chem said:

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Wealth taxes are no more or less moral than any other tax. Taxes come from what you have, what you make, or what you consume. Those are the 3 options. One isn't more "moral" than the others.

Property tax is a tax on money you owe. It makes no sense. We already pay interest.

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Taxing unrealized gains IS immoral.

You can only pay the taxes by divesting yourself of a portion of your assets...

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A wealth tax has nothing to do with gains. It has to do with wealth. Heck my property tax is not only a tax on unrealized gains; it's also a tax on my unpaid debts. Taxing paper gains makes way more sense than taxing debt.

If you view a wealth tax as a tax on paper gains, then you may be inclined to tax increases in account value, rather than the account itself. Can you imagine the conflict of interest, as politicians would desperately try to drive portfolio values higher in order to grow tax revenue? The growth of the debt would make the current system look like child's play.

What even is a billionaire?

Their networth is typically a controlling interest in a company they founded or invested in. It's not liquid.

How would a billionaire VC for example, go and liquidate his holdings in private companies? And how would that even be valued? Based on the last fundraising round?

And if corporations are people too, why not just a 5% tax on a corporations market cap? It's the same thing as a wealth tax, but on the corporation. Everyone knows that's absurd but for some reason morons think it will work on individuals.

These billionaires are just going to put all of their controlling interests into trusts and things not in their name. I also imagine a lot of tomfoolery with art prices and donations and non profits. I'll just offset my taxes by making a charitable donation of this 100 million dollar works of art whose price was set by a series of anonymous buyers in auctions.

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If you view a wealth tax as a tax on paper gains, then you may be inclined to tax increases in account value, rather than the account itself. Can you imagine the conflict of interest, as politicians would desperately try to drive portfolio values higher in order to grow tax revenue? The growth of the debt would make the current system look like child's play.

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And trying to legalize that amount of power, encouraging market manipulation even should have everyone outraged. This ain't rocket science.

Yeah, I don't see how this is even logistically feasible. My guess is if they pass this tax, they won't actually get money from it months to years later because it's going to take forever to even calculate what the number should be due to the complexity of most billionaire's estates.

How can you tax net worth. Taxes are generated via yearly income. Want discounts, invest and donate. This is literally just an unconstitutional money grab that is a kast ditch effort from a liberal **** hole.

IslanderAg04 said:

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How can you tax net worth. Taxes are generated via yearly income. Want discounts, invest and donate. This is literally just an unconstitutional money grab that is a kast ditch effort from a liberal **** hole.

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I see you've never paid property tax.

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I see you've never paid property tax.

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My old house in Austin backed up to a greenbelt. My backyard extended down a steep slope to that greenbelt edge with my pool partially inground and then surrounded on the back with a huge deck. The slope was unuseable and a few years after I had lived there, some trash trees had grown up on the edge of deck. And those trash trees would litter my pool with leaves so I had my yard company cut them down just to help keep my pool clean.

Guess what showed up on my property tax bill the next year? A "View Tax:"

This is nothing but the CA Dems latest class warfare act to distract from the utter failure of their policies.

If they were serious, they would repeal Prop 13. But that is their third rail.

YouBet said:

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infinity ag said:

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Tom Fox said:

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Ag with kids said:

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Tom Fox said:

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Ag with kids said:

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Tom Fox said:

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Ag with kids said:

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94chem said:

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Wealth taxes are no more or less moral than any other tax. Taxes come from what you have, what you make, or what you consume. Those are the 3 options. One isn't more "moral" than the others.

Property tax is a tax on money you owe. It makes no sense. We already pay interest.

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Taxing unrealized gains IS immoral.

You can only pay the taxes by divesting yourself of a portion of your assets...

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Not if the tax rate is low enough and your earnings high enough. If you are house poor, certainly. That is an idiotic life choice.

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It's a wealth tax.

Doesn't matter if all that money you make is in your house, your bank account, Hunter's paintings, etc.

Unless you piss away all those earnings every month, they will accumulate SOMEWHERE. Voila...WEALTH.

Now you have to divest a portion of that wealth.

Or get a big line of credit...

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Mine accumulates in my investment portfolio which is taxed lower than my income. I don't store my wealth in my home because Texas punishes that.

I don't have to divest dick. My income covers my property taxes easily. If I want low property taxes, there are plenty of states that do that outside of Texas.

I want the lowest collective taxes period regardless of mechanism or I want everyone paying the same rate at both the Fed or state level.

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FWIW, I'm only discussing the subject of this thread - the Wealth Tax.

I agree that your method of investment in TX works to minimize your taxes.

I brought up the concept of taxing unrealized gains as being immoral...because that is what a wealth tax does.

But, the wealth tax doesn't just look at your house value, it looks at ALL your assets' value. So, you would have to come up with 5% of the value of that at tax time. So, you'd have to divest a portion of your assets, because most people don't keep THAT much cash on hand.

That was my point. My point was not to discuss Texas tax law or how to minimize taxes for you or anyone (other than not having a wealth tax).

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Oh yeah, then I agree it should be unconstitutional to directly tax wealth and all taxation should be either a flat income or consumption tax.

And anyone not paying should not get to vote.

But I do not support a change mid stream that raises my taxes in the middle of my high earning years unless it includes everything that I listed above. Primarily how the feds tax needs to be fixed then we can adjust our state taxation.

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I disagree from Tom Fox in a few ways.

I believe that people at the lowest income level must not pay any income tax. What the level is can be negotiated, maybe it is $30k for married. No income tax on unemployment, it is ridiculous to tax people when they lost their jobs and are in difficulty. The country won't reduce any debt or gain anything significant by taxing unemployment and extremely poor people.

Everyone gets to vote if they are a citizen. You cannot have only rich people deciding things, we already have them framing rules on how they can get richer.

Here is where I agree with him.
No wealth tax. Everyone planned their finances around there being no wealth tax, you cannot just add it and trash everyone's finances so you can pay for illegals from Venezuela or Somalia.

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If you don't pay tax, you shouldn't get to vote. It's inherently unfair that they get to determine the direction of the country with no skin in the game. Get yourself out of the income level that doesn't pay tax and then you can start voting.

All of those foreigners you complain about being here that shouldn't are usually in these lowest income levels. Do you want them voting themselves the treasury?

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It's very easy to vote to raise taxes on OTHER people when you know it won't affect you.

dmart90 said:

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Let's say there are 200 billionaires in Cali.

And their average net worth is $11.25B (which is admittedly high).

A 5% net worth tax nets them $112.5B.

Cali's '26 budget is $321B.

So that "one time" tax covers ~4 months worth of state expenditures.

Idiots.

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I wouldn't say it's actually high...

The top 10 billionaires in CA are worth $1.27T. If the next 190 were all worth only $1B each (which is not the case), then that 5% is $73B. So your number is easily in the ballpark. But, I'd bet it's actually low.

YouBet said:

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FIDO*98* said:

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94chem said:

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deddog said:

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The proposal calls for California residents worth more than $1 billion to pay a one-time tax equivalent to 5% of their assets.

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Wow.
Absolute insanity.

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I have 2 houses worth over $1million. I pay about 2.7% tax on them every year. I only have about 50% equity. So the tax rate on my "wealth" is effectively over 5%, and I pay it every single year. I pay about 2.7% on the part I own, and 2.7% on the part I don't own. Funny how Texans bury their heads in the sand and act like we don't already have a wealth tax, except that it's charged on assets you don't even own.

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100%. This is the biggest issue for us as we plan for retirement. Income will decrease while property taxes increase annually in perpetuity. Our vacation home is about 60% of the value of our primary home but taxes are 180% because we can't homestead it and tax rates are higher when you're on the water. Wealth taxes are immoral and should be eliminated completely starting with property tax

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And don't discount insurance. Our home insurance costs about the same as our property taxes. We paid a full-time salary just in property taxes and insurance in 2025. Now factor in all house bills. Our annual costs just to live in this house are astronomical. We did well in life and it's a badass house on the water. However, I've also been gently telling my wife we can't live here forever because we are eventually going to get our annual spending budget out of whack just because of the house. Or, her business needs to kill it or I need to go back to work. Over Christmas, she brought it up on her own that she doesn't see us staying here long haul. I was happy to hear this.

Don't get me wrong - I love living here but we can get the same level of house almost anywhere else with half the tax impact and probably 1/10 of the insurance impact. And to think almost everyone around us has an equivalent house or more and they are second homes. They are paying more than what we are paying for a non-homesteaded house on top of their primary. We have some extremely rich m'fers as neighbors and I'm sure some extremely house poor folks as well. Our challenge will be selling the house when it comes time.

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When I took my latest job, it was so that I could buy a house on N Padre Island and retire there. Now I look at the expense to just "own" the home when it's paid off in 6 years and realize it's at least $1500/mo for taxes/insurance and realize I could probably get another house somewhere for a LOT less and if I still want to go to the coast, I could just RENT a place for a month or several months and still be better off.

Ag with kids said:

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YouBet said:

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FIDO*98* said:

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94chem said:

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deddog said:

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Quote:

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The proposal calls for California residents worth more than $1 billion to pay a one-time tax equivalent to 5% of their assets.

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Wow.
Absolute insanity.

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I have 2 houses worth over $1million. I pay about 2.7% tax on them every year. I only have about 50% equity. So the tax rate on my "wealth" is effectively over 5%, and I pay it every single year. I pay about 2.7% on the part I own, and 2.7% on the part I don't own. Funny how Texans bury their heads in the sand and act like we don't already have a wealth tax, except that it's charged on assets you don't even own.

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100%. This is the biggest issue for us as we plan for retirement. Income will decrease while property taxes increase annually in perpetuity. Our vacation home is about 60% of the value of our primary home but taxes are 180% because we can't homestead it and tax rates are higher when you're on the water. Wealth taxes are immoral and should be eliminated completely starting with property tax

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And don't discount insurance. Our home insurance costs about the same as our property taxes. We paid a full-time salary just in property taxes and insurance in 2025. Now factor in all house bills. Our annual costs just to live in this house are astronomical. We did well in life and it's a badass house on the water. However, I've also been gently telling my wife we can't live here forever because we are eventually going to get our annual spending budget out of whack just because of the house. Or, her business needs to kill it or I need to go back to work. Over Christmas, she brought it up on her own that she doesn't see us staying here long haul. I was happy to hear this.

Don't get me wrong - I love living here but we can get the same level of house almost anywhere else with half the tax impact and probably 1/10 of the insurance impact. And to think almost everyone around us has an equivalent house or more and they are second homes. They are paying more than what we are paying for a non-homesteaded house on top of their primary. We have some extremely rich m'fers as neighbors and I'm sure some extremely house poor folks as well. Our challenge will be selling the house when it comes time.

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When I took my latest job, it was so that I could buy a house on N Padre Island and retire there. Now I look at the expense to just "own" the home when it's paid off in 6 years and realize it's at least $1500/mo for taxes/insurance and realize I could probably get another house somewhere for a LOT less and if I still want to go to the coast, I could just RENT a place for a month or several months and still be better off.

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Exactly. I'm upstream from you. I could pay for at least one five star, elite vacation per year (and likely a second vacation a step down) if we simply moved away from the coast. I actually haven't used this specific comparison point with wife so noting this down for later.

94chem said:

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Ag with kids said:

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94chem said:

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Wealth taxes are no more or less moral than any other tax. Taxes come from what you have, what you make, or what you consume. Those are the 3 options. One isn't more "moral" than the others.

Property tax is a tax on money you owe. It makes no sense. We already pay interest.

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Taxing unrealized gains IS immoral.

You can only pay the taxes by divesting yourself of a portion of your assets...

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A wealth tax has nothing to do with gains. It has to do with wealth. Heck my property tax is not only a tax on unrealized gains; it's also a tax on my unpaid debts. Taxing paper gains makes way more sense than taxing debt.

If you view a wealth tax as a tax on paper gains, then you may be inclined to tax increases in account value, rather than the account itself. Can you imagine the conflict of interest, as politicians would desperately try to drive portfolio values higher in order to grow tax revenue? The growth of the debt would make the current system look like child's play.

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Um, respectfully...bull*****

If I invest $1000 in stocks, and they grow to be $1,000,000 in value, the wealth tax is on $1,000,000 (my wealth).

So, the wealth tax is MAINLY on the UNREALIZED GAINS of $999,000. Because I don't actually have $1,000,000 until I SELL that stock.

Larry Ellison (the richest CA billionaire) doesn't have $393B. He has unrealized gains in his stock portfolio that have GROWN to $393B. He was paid X shares of stock that were worth $Y at the time. They are now worth $10Y (for example). The CA wealth tax would be taxing that value of $393B, most of which is nothing but unrealized gains.

Now, you are correct that your property tax is a tax on unrealized gains. I agree. And I also that it is immoral.

Remember this before you give any sympathy to the tech bros.

Farmer_J said:

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Remember this before you give any sympathy to the tech bros.

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Yeah Tech bros don't need any sympathy. I am actually laughing as I read the news. I know the idea of wealth tax is stupid but I won't cry if the billionaires get some comeuppance.

Oh by the way, Google Boy Larry Page is supposed to be quitting CA today. So he spends 2026 in a new state. Prepare to welcome him in Texas.

Farmer_J said:

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Remember this before you give any sympathy to the tech bros.

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I don't have any sympathy for them, but I look at these things strategically and long-term. It's a slippery slope. Remember...everything that Democrats do is incrementalism. If they get this on the books, it will expand and eventually directly impact you.

I verified this.

NEW: Peter Thiel is opening an office in Miami for his personal investment firm, Thiel Capital.

Thiel just put out this press release. Why? Because he is trying to show publicly that he is a taxpayer in Florida, not California.

Note that it says the lease was signed Dec. 2025. pic.twitter.com/S9qh1nf1pX

— Teddy Schleifer (@teddyschleifer) December 31, 2025

Hmm, connected?

Tell them not to go to New York City there's a socialist, communist, racist, terrorist-supporter, running it.

Some amazing push back/anger in Silicon Valley toward Ro Khanna over this latest idiocy.

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So, to sum up, Ro Khanna sent out an email fundraising off the fact that "billionaires" (who aren't billionaires) want to primary him. And then he refused to correct the record by sending out another email to donors. Then his chief strategist stepped in to say he hadn't sent the email at all, only a similar one. And even though Rep. Khanna refuses all PAC money, he didn't notice this particular email written in his voice came from a PAC and didn't promise to do anything about it because that's just how the system works.

This is the guy who is going to end waste, fraud and abuse at the state level because he's such a beacon of purity? Good luck with that.

In all the backlash so far, I don't see anyone challenging Rep. Khanna on the biggest lie of all, the one about this being a one time tax. According to the actual text of this proposal the $100 billion or so raised from the one-time 5% tax would be spent over 4 years. What happens when the money is spent? Where does the state plug the funding gap next time around?

It's worth asking because it puts the lie to the claim being made by the unions behind this that it is just a one-time tax. Ro Khanna knows that's a lie which is why he's being careful not to repeat it.

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He's actually a smart guy so I am a little surprised he has gone down this road. More at the link. It's a pretty funny circular firing squad of leftists at this point.

Ag with kids said:

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SMM48 said:

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He will get or has a Line of credit. Stock won't be sold in one fell swoope. Thats not how it works.

The fact this post got 4 stars is interesting.

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BTW, 5% of the wealth of just the top 10 Californians is $63B.

That would be a LOT of lines of credit to extend.

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Chances are they've already been in place.

They'll use options to raise cash and incur losses on their equity gains.

SMM48 said:

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Ag with kids said:

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SMM48 said:

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He will get or has a Line of credit. Stock won't be sold in one fell swoope. Thats not how it works.

The fact this post got 4 stars is interesting.

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BTW, 5% of the wealth of just the top 10 Californians is $63B.

That would be a LOT of lines of credit to extend.

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Chances are they've already been in place.

They'll use options to raise cash and incur losses on their equity gains.

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That's probably not good for the market...

That article is fire. It's interesting that Khanna says in those exchanges that this "one-time" tax would be over a five year period and that he's effectively pushing for this tax to pay for universal health care.

In what world is he going to fund universal health care after they exhaust this "one-time" tax? Plus, California is already in debt so they would need to plug their existing debt shortfall first before they could even fund anything new. Looking at that they are already running a ~$40B annual deficit, have ~$80B in direct debt on the books and then once you include unfunded obligations (pensions) they are $1.3T in debt.

And he's going to stop all the fraud and abuse while doing this? lol.

It's classic Dem approach to budgeting. Promise even richer benefits to an expanding group of people and claim you can pay for it by making the rich pay their "fair share" without any consideration for current budget deficits or the impact of capital flight and legal tax avoidance counter-measures by "the rich."

Doomed to fail, just like everything else they push. Obamacare is a great example. And SS/Medicare are on a slow but certain path to insolvency also.