A Google founder has more than doubled his financial contribution to the fight against a proposed wealth tax in California. New filings with the state show that former Alphabet president Sergey Brin donated $25m to a Super Pac dedicated to blocking the tax on top of $20m he had already given.
Brin is not alone among Google’s top brass in upping his financial stake in the campaign against the ballot proposal. The company’s former CEO Eric Schmidt donated $1.02m, adding to a previous $2m contribution.
The tech titans are battling the California Billionaire Tax act, often referred to simply as the billionaire tax. It’s a proposed ballot measure that would require any California resident worth more than $1bn to pay a one-off, 5% tax on their assets to help cover education, food assistance and healthcare programs in the state. It’s sponsored by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, and is still in the signature-gathering phase.
If the measure reaches the ballot and gains voters’ approval, the tax would apply to billionaires based on their residency as of 1 January 2026. For Brin, worth about $247bn, the bill would likely be upwards of $12bn. That stipulation appears to have caused him and several other billionaires to leave California at the end of last year. Brin relocated to a $42m estate on the north-eastern shore of Lake Tahoe in Nevada, and his Pac donations show Reno as his address. Schmidt’s filings show his address as West Hollywood.
This tax is stupid IMO, it shouldn’t be one time, but 1% every year.
I’ll take the 5% though, better than nothing.
Once upon a time this guy would have paid 94% in federal taxes. The math would have literally worked against him … he could pay workers more and give them benefits to lose his money or just lost the money in taxes.
This style tax scale is what got one guy elected FOUR TIMES as President of the US.
Yup, the first so much of his earnings would have been lower rates, after the amount surpasses thresholds, the rate increases on that part, reaching 90 some percent on obscene amounts.
They don’t take wages now though, they get like stock options, then borrow against their stock holdings, borrowing more to pay off the old, never realizing a gain to pay taxes. As per Propublica’s reporting.
it’s almost like their should be capital interest tax and loan resurgence limits, that require a federal application and limits on how it can be used (like home and auto loans are)
It is an easy fix yes, borrow against value to get money, get taxed on it, at least sometimes. Other fixes are needed. Thiel packed paypal shares into an IRA and walked away with billions tax free I guess.
We should allow individuals to tax themselves like a corporation too, subtract all of our expenses from our earnings and pay taxes on the remainder, then find taxes from those that can afford them, like the rich.
Yea, the tax free loan loophole needs to be closed as well. So do the cancerous growth causing tax exemptions that make them spend every dime purchasing other companies.
I am unfamiliar with this one, at least in the abstract, I know they can write off losses, depreciation, but for acquisitions too?
That is horrible tax policy. We are being strangled by price fixing from every angle already.
Yes, by the tax code buying another company is an investment. Sometimes they even get tax credits for doing it.
Federal income taxes. It’s an important distinction between wealth taxes and income taxes. The problem with billionaires isn’t what they’re willing to admit to in income, it’s what they’re able to do with their vast wealth.
I have heard a few people talk sanely about the tax and the more I hear the more ridiculous this one time “fee” sounds.
I heard a far better proposal about closing the tax loopholes they use. Wealthy folks are borrowing tax free against unrealized capital gains. They pay little to no tax on it.
It’s not sexy but it’s a way better solution because not only does it tax the people who need to be taxed, it also begins to help people push back against capital being more powerful than labour.
It’s also far less costly to implement. You borrow against unrealized capital gains to live as if it were income - boom income tax.
Better once than not at all. It doesn’t preclude better solutions in the future.
I don’t disagree with you on principle - but I worry what with attention and nuance being nonexistent these days we end up with “we tried it once and it didn’t work” - and never get to a better solution.
I recently heard a possible California governor candidate talk good sense on better ways to tax the wealthy and he made a very reasoned argument against this tax - it changed my mind. Note: am not American.
That’s probably the only real valid reason to go against it.
Not because it is unfair. But because there’s no teeth to it by making it non-recurring.
newsom doesnt want to upset the hands that feed the DNC, in california or in general, its performative for the elections.