HOW TO TAX A BILLIONAIRE

It isn’t easy to overcome the oligarchs.

- —Michael Mechanic

THIS NOVEMBER, California voters will weigh what could become America’s first-ever tax on net worth.

The Billionaire Tax Act, a ballot initiative put forth by health workers after President Donald Trump blew holes in the state Medicaid budget, would impose a onetime tax of 5 percent on personal wealth exceeding $1 billion. With polls indicating majority support, tech oligarchs have threatened an exodus and crafted competing measures, bankrolling them to the tune of more than $100 million—including at least $57 million from Google's Sergey Brin.

On the other side is University of California, Berkeley, law professor Brian Galle, who helped write the initiative, along with several federal efforts. These bills seldom go anywhere, even though ordinary Americans would very much like to tax the obscenely rich, as a 2024 report by the amusingly named Excessive Wealth Disorder Institute made clear. The nonprofit examined 56 polls on specific redistributive proposals and found most had majority support. People favored surtaxes on incomes over a million bucks, and for the rich to pay at least the rate on their investment gains as workers pay on their wages. They wanted Congress to kill intergenerational dynasty trusts that grow, untaxed, in perpetuity and favored a dramatic reduction in the estate tax exemption—now $30 million—that a superwealthy couple can give heirs without paying a dime.