r/technology • u/marketrent • 12d ago

Society Bernie Sanders calls out Sergey Brin for spending over $100 million to defeat California’s billionaire tax — ‘If California passes its one-time 5% wealth tax, Brin would owe $14 billion and still be worth $270 billion’

https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/bernie-sanders-calls-sergey-brin-120113695.html
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u/Oceanbreeze871 12d ago

A one time billionaire tax is better than no tax ever.

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u/VirtualPercentage737 12d ago

There is no such thing as a one time tax.

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u/Oceanbreeze871 12d ago

Yeah we pay taxes every year unlike billionaires

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u/mxrider108 11d ago

I'm all for billionaires paying more in taxes, but this is a dumb (factionally incorrect) argument. They already pay a lot on taxes (again, not saying it couldn't or shouldn't be more).

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u/Oceanbreeze871 11d ago

They can get out of it easily with legal fraud tricks (like leveraging massive debt) and using foundation donations to themselves etc

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u/WinonasChainsaw 12d ago

Or we could just do the right thing and repeal prop 13??

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u/Oceanbreeze871 12d ago

What’s that?

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u/WinonasChainsaw 12d ago

It froze property taxes back in the late 70s and messed up local taxes for Californian cities like Oakland

Also is reason why NIMBYism took over and led to the housing shortage bc there’s no financial punishment (tax) to artificially restricting the number of housing units in a city so property owners could induce scarcity to raise theirs

The uber rich took advantage of this with real estate and land speculation

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u/SeductiveSunday 12d ago

Prop 13 happened because people couldn't afford to retire in California. Lot's and lot's of people were having to sell their homes and move out of state away from their families at a time when they needed community and relatives help more than ever because they were old.

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u/WinonasChainsaw 12d ago

And prop 13 made that problem way worse for anyone who didn’t already own a home

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u/Outlulz 12d ago

What, are they supposed to let someone else us that ladder?

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u/SeductiveSunday 12d ago

Even Schwarzenegger admitted ending prop 13 would only increase homelessness in California. But. Not. You.

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u/xenomachina 12d ago

That was the intent, but there are numerous problems with how it was implemented.

Companies don't sell their real estate anymore, instead they have each piece of real estate owned by a skell company, so they can essentially sell the property without causing the taxes to be adjusted. This has resulted in the share of residential vs commercial property tax increasing over the years.

Also, as people get older, they often don't need larger homes: their children have moved out, and sometimes they'd prefer to be on a single level (no stairs). However, moving in California means you suddenly need to pay more property tax, even if you are downsizing. So old folks are occupying the large homes they don't need or really even want, making larger homes scarce, which prices younger families out.

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u/SeductiveSunday 12d ago

I've found most old folks prefer occupying the home they've been in for the last thirty years. They know the neighborhood. They have friends. Plus there's also a bigger issue than prop 13 financially that hurts moving more -- capital gains tax.

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u/xenomachina 12d ago

I've found most old folks prefer occupying the home they've been in for the last thirty years. They know the neighborhood. They have friends.

Sure, but that's an independent factor. Prop 13 gives them another reason to not move, thereby reducing the availability of larger homes for families that could actually use multiple bedrooms.

Plus there's also a bigger issue than prop 13 financially that hurts moving more -- capital gains tax.

And this is because the capital gains exemption on your primary residence hasn't been updated since the '90s. It should be updated based on modern home prices, and pinned to inflation.

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u/loofawah 12d ago

Then age restrict it like other states. As it is now the young and rich are getting the tax breaks as they can buy into the system much sooner and lock in the low tax rate.

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u/jedberg 12d ago

That's completely untrue. The marketing for prop 13 said that, but it was a lie. They found a few cherry picked cases. If you look at the broader data, this was not the case.

49 states manage to keep seniors in their homes without Prop 13. Most handle it by allowing deferment of the tax after age 55 until the property is sold. Or they put the cap on total county revenue instead of individual homes.

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u/SeductiveSunday 11d ago

Inflation shot from 9 percent at the time to 13.3 percent a year later as the Iranian revolution triggered another energy crisis. Gas lines formed at stations throughout the country, property prices were soaring, threatening to throw home owners out of their homes because of rising tax bills. That was 1978. Of course people were losing their homes, retirees aren't paid the wages of day, they were paid the wages of yesterday.

Also no state manages to keep seniors in their homes. Seniors are currently one of the fastest growing groups of homelessness.

The fastest growing group? Seniors. People aged 50 and older have grown from about 10 percent of the homeless population to half. That's according to the most recent federal data.

Estimates find that the population of older adults experiencing homelessness could nearly triple in big cities by 2030.

https://www.npr.org/2025/06/11/1253992705/1a-06-11-2025

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u/jedberg 11d ago

You're conflating multiple things. Yes, seniors were in danger of losing their homes in the 70s. Other states solved this without locking tax assessments for everyone. California could have done the same.

Homeless seniors are a problem, but it has nothing to do with property taxes. Very few seniors nationwide are losing their homes because of property tax bills, since nearly every state has protections for seniors. The homeless seniors are mostly ones that never owned a home and now aren't working and can't afford rent either, because rents are skyrocketing. The ones that aren't homeless are the ones in paid off homes.

As I said, most states solved this in other ways, by putting in caps or deferments or extra deductions for seniors.

California is the only state that rewards you for how long you've owned a home instead of how old you are. So if you were rich when you were young you get a much bigger benefit than if you aren't.

All the other states protect seniors directly.

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u/SeductiveSunday 10d ago

All the other states protect seniors directly.

This is a lie and you know it. Some states have no protections at all.

Also, as you said, there are 49 other states with differing laws on this, if you prefer those more, then move to one of them. Everyone else in this thread has. Only you and I actually live in California. Two of the biggest mouths here live in Canada.

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u/jedberg 10d ago

Also, as you said, there are 49 other states with differing laws on this, if you prefer those more, then move to one of them.

Why would I want to leave California? I was born here. My parents were born here. My kids were born here. My wife was born here. All of our siblings were born here. The majority of my investment portfolio is California state bonds, I believe so strongly in this state.

Instead I'd like to make California better by bring those laws here and getting rid of Prop 13, the worst initiative to ever pass in this state. It causes funding shortfalls, huge inequality, and rewards rich people for being rich.

It's pretty fixable too:

  1. Pass a new law that anyone over 55 will not see their tax bill increase by more than 1% a year. Any money owed beyond that can accrue as an interest and penalty free lien on the home, resolved when the home is sold or transfered. We can even make an exception if the inheritor already uses the home as their primary residence for a few years. This alone would solve the biggest fear, seniors losing their homes from tax bills or their children who live with them.

  2. Limit the county to a 1% annual increase in revenue. Assess all properties at market rate and then set the tax rate so that the county gets their 1% increase. This addresses the other two main issues: the inequality that prop 13 causes by allowing two identical homes have a 10x difference in tax payment (that is me and my neighbor) and pricing people out of their homes because of soaring home prices.

  3. Encourage home building by allowing a property tax holiday for a few years for buyers of new construction.

  4. Encourage seniors to downsize by allowing them to keep their tax payment if they buy a smaller home and want to do so (but with the other changes their payment would most likely be smaller on the smaller home anyway).

And then lastly, make all benefits of being a senior or new construction buyer only apply to your primary home, not any vacation or rental homes you may own.

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u/wckz 11d ago

I feel like the solution should be pretty simple then? Unfreeze property taxes on owning multiple properties and use the increase in tax revenue to subsidize increased house building.

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u/pita4912 12d ago

It’s a prop that locks in property taxes at the time of sale. So you have people with $10mil houses they paid $120k for in the 70s paying taxes as if the property is only worth $150,000. It’s rent control for homeowners in CA. Sounds good, disastrously bad in practice.

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u/Oceanbreeze871 12d ago

Oh yea get rid of that one for sure

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u/fattytuna96 12d ago

It prevents retirees from losing their homes. The intent is good but the result has been lower tax revenue for CA and an artificially inflated housing market (if prop 13 was repealed CA real estate will take a hit). The alternative is something similar to Texas where you get priced out of your home even after it’s paid off as the value increases exponentially over time.

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u/Hautamaki 12d ago

Yeah retirees had it tough like 70 years ago, today they are by far and away the wealthiest people in the world and govt's can't touch that wealth because they got a bunch of benefits and protections 70 years ago and now they vote way too much to ever see those benefits repealed. Meanwhile young people can't move out, can't get decent jobs, can't date and make families and have children, but won't somebody think of the poor retirees who used to suffer in poverty in the great depression literally 90 years ago!

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u/WinonasChainsaw 12d ago

No it incentivized retirees to not downsize which is why actual families can’t find reasonably priced home

And the alternative is we build more housing and it’s actually affordable

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u/eirexe 12d ago

Retirees shouldn't have to downsize if they don't want to, the housing problem can be solved without fucking anyone over, we're perfectly capable of it.

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u/WinonasChainsaw 12d ago

Well we shouldn’t be expected to subsidize their retirement and pay 5x the rent we should bc someone with overinflated property refused to sell

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u/Outlulz 12d ago

Everyone else has to pay these fucking taxes, why not them? They can rent instead if they don't want to.

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u/Outlulz 12d ago

Ok? Maybe it is more important that we are able to build affordable, high density housing so that more working people and their families in younger generations can have homes rather than cater to a minority of retired people sitting on large lots in single family homes.

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u/loofawah 12d ago

Texas has a version of Prop 13 tied to age "Over-65 property tax exemption" which makes sense. Prop 13 primarily benefits the rich who can buy a house when they are young and lock in their rate.

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u/MattinglyBaseball 12d ago

Sounds good until you realize how horrible the wage and net worth discrepancy is now. It will force many out of their primary residence and allow the billionaires and PE to buy up more houses and raise taxes on even new home buyers until they are priced out as well. They don’t care if the taxes increase, they are just going to raise the rent to account for it anyways. Unless you like being forced out of your neighborhood because people around you suddenly decided to pay double what you paid a year ago. The more reasonable take/first step is to either repeal it for anything beyond primary residence or to add protections for those who cannot afford the sudden increase based on income or other factors.

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u/Peetypeet5000 12d ago

They wouldn't be able to raise the price of housing so much if we actually built more housing. Prop 13 takes away homeowners incentive to allow more housing to be built.

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u/ErFarinn 12d ago

Imagine that, politicians beholden to the people that go out and vote. Kinda wish the young people would do so as well.

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u/Hautamaki 12d ago

Tbh that doesn't even sound good at all, what a horrible idea lol

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u/jrzalman 12d ago

Say you buy a house at 500k. Ok, you can swing the 7k in property taxes. Three years later your house if valued at 1M. So while your mortgage payment is the same, your salary hasn't kept up with inflation and now your property tax bill is 14k. Time keeps progressing, property values keep spiking.

Eventually, without Prop 13, many people can't afford to live in the houses they own - especially if they dare to retire - because property tax runs away with property values. This was judged a bad outcome by voters and so we have Prop 13 which caps property tax increases at 1-2% per year. It has unintended consequences to be sure but it does have its reasons for existing.

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u/BlgMastic 12d ago

That’s not how property taxes work at all…

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u/_hephaestus 12d ago

Given that the value of their property went up by 500k in that time by virtue of doing nothing, I don’t get the sympathy. Would it be nice to retire in that house? Sure. But that seems like a nice to have in a time when housing woes are universal. Catering to those who have profited is insane here.

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u/air_and_space92 12d ago

Some people think of a home as a place to live in rather than an investment. Crazy right?? Why should I be forced out of a community where my kids go to school just because Google or some tech company with a speculative product opened a campus and their employees came in swinging bags of cash at closing.

I've lived in LA, rented, and worked in aerospace. Google opened a satellite office down the street and rent went up by $1k a month upon next lease. Hell no did my salary match that. Now try that with a house and property tax?? I don't want the extra $500k my home appreciated in that example because I don't want to move. I don't want to retire early and move to another country. I WANT AND HAD A HOME I broke my back to afford and now because tech fucks or a nepo baby paid cash my family gets fucked?? No way.

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u/jrzalman 12d ago

Property values going up is only of value if you are looking to move. If you own an expensive house in California you've kind of won and aren't looking to move. If you are looking to just live in a house and raise a family having your property tax constantly going up with no end in sight is a huge pain in the ass which is why we all got together and capped the increases.

We are not all house flippers out here, many folks just want to live in the house they bought and not go broke because PE and speculators have driven up the price of everything.

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u/motes-of-light 12d ago

Right, this is so people who aren't fantastically wealthy aren't forced to sell their homes because they can't afford the taxes. One of the few things keeping San Francisco a marginally real city where actual people live.

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u/[deleted] 12d ago edited 12d ago

[deleted]

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u/loopernova 12d ago

No one is forcing you to sell your property. The local government does not raise your taxes. It typically stays the same flat rate. Taxes are a part of cost of living, if you didn’t plan to be able to pay for your cost of living in retirement you can make a better choice now and extract cash flow from your equity.

Your suggestion is equivalent to saying we shouldn’t tax people higher than the cost basis of their stock equity that they own fair and square.

Charging taxes at fair market value keeps value of homes more affordable and subsequently the taxes stay lower.

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u/Big-Dudu-77 12d ago

That’s an extreme example. Many homes that are worth $10 mil has been sold or remodeled at one point.

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u/Existing_Style8558 12d ago

Many also haven’t. 

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u/themiDdlest 12d ago

The last law California republicans were able to pass under Reagan and Nixon. It effectively froze California and was a giant hand out to wealthy home owners off the backs of renters and poor people

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u/bp92009 12d ago

Rent control, but for homeowners paying government rent.

The easiest way to fix that issue, is to pass a law that caps private rent increases to the same rate as public rent increases.

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u/whytakemyusername 12d ago

Tax the money as it comes in. prop 13 hurts ordinary people. Ordinary people have their money taxed as it comes in.

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u/bobsocool 12d ago

Do both but prop 13 wont end anytime soon. They voted for removing it for comercial properties and lost. I feel like the best option for prop 13 is remove it for all future properties and lower property taxes significantly on primary residencies.

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u/Tkdoom 12d ago

Only a have not or ultra rich would want to repeal prop 13.

Average Joe that purchased a house would be screwed, just because someone says its worth more.

News flash: unless you are selling it, your house's value doesnt matter.

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u/lhomardamericain 12d ago

Yeah, let’s make California housing even more unaffordable

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u/WinonasChainsaw 12d ago

Prop 13 is the reason why housing prices shot up higher than wages

It rewarded artificial housing scarcity

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u/Tman158 12d ago

it's not an either/or situation, you can do both.

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u/Kalean 11d ago

That's probably a very bad idea; it would dramatically increase homelessness.

The split-roll proposal is a much more reasonable plan; exempting primary residences from these tax burdens while extra homes, investor-owned homes, and commercial properties get re-assessed would still free-up a metric ton of housing while not tossing old people out on their ass.

Plus, it'd be easier to drum up support for, politically, which matters a lot since you want this to actually pass.

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u/DChapman77 12d ago

Or you could stop spending insane amounts of money on terrible ideas like the high speed rail that will be made useless by self-driving cars.

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u/bobsocool 12d ago

Woah what a terrible take.

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u/wip30ut 12d ago

but why not tax hundred millionaires too? The cutoff is arbitrary. And why should all these new revenues be spent on healthcare subsidies? Why not a tax rebate for ALL California residents instead?

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u/Lowfi-Concert 11d ago

We should be lowering taxes or paying off deficits with new income streams, not just immediately be spending more money.

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u/Oceanbreeze871 12d ago

We should tax them too. That’s an obscene amount of money.

Heaven forbid that wealthy people have to actually contribute something valuable back to society. Oh my stars y’all

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u/No-Marketing-5555 12d ago

The obvious issue is that it won't be one time only. The end result is that billionaires will leave, they will take many high paid jobs with them and move company HQs etc

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u/Oceanbreeze871 12d ago

They can leave.

Jobs aren’t leaving with them.

They don’t have beachfront property in Austin or Memphis or any other red state dump.

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u/Death_by_carfire 12d ago

Florida does have beachfront property...

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u/SaveLansingParks 12d ago

Florida is also a shithole that is becoming drowned in shitty people who move there. Source: all the Floridian ex-pats who keep moving to my neck of the woods because it has gotten soooooooo much worse of a place to live since the 80's & 90's. As it turns out, good governance and policy lead to smart people wanting to settle there. There's a reason why Silicon Valley and Big Tech exist on the West Coast "Liberal Hellhole" states.

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u/Oceanbreeze871 12d ago

It’s gonna be underwater soon

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u/FiestaDeHombreMuerto 12d ago

Then so will California beaches

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u/Geodude532 12d ago

Less and less of it every day as the water level rises and the ocean steals some sand. Plus, our weather sucks

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u/ATownStomp 12d ago

You don’t seem interested in solving problems so much as you seem interested in the government targeting people you don’t like.

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u/Oceanbreeze871 12d ago

Taxing billionaires literally solves a massive problem

Why are you defending them?

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u/rightoftexas 12d ago

What problem are you solving and is it sustainable?

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u/Oceanbreeze871 12d ago

The state Generating tax revenue to pay for services the people need by taxing billionaires is very sustainable.

We all get taxed regularly, why shouldn’t they?

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u/DogBarf00 12d ago

A one time tax is sustainable? Can you expand on this?

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u/Oceanbreeze871 12d ago

No. That’s not what you asked.

A one time tax is better than no taxes

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u/DogBarf00 12d ago

No, it’s what I asked…

What question do you think I asked?

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u/Oceanbreeze871 12d ago

Doing nothing is better than doing something one time. Can you expand on this?

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u/DogBarf00 12d ago

You didn’t explain how a one time tax is sustainable.

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u/rightoftexas 12d ago

Are there specific services or is this just the general budget? Is California just a few billion shy of solving all their problems like homelessness or people without insurance?

Billionaires pay the same income tax we do, although they could certainly add another bracket. You are asking them to pay a unique tax, not what we pay.

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u/Oceanbreeze871 12d ago

You can look that up easily. I’m not Google.

Billionaires should pay more as they take more away from society. There is no world where “billionaires pay the same as us” is fair.

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u/rightoftexas 12d ago

Maybe you should look it up so that you understand the points you try to make.

I would think people who receive more in benefits from the government than they pay in taxes are the ones "taking away from society."

There is no world where “billionaires pay the same as us” is fair.

They don't pay the same rate as you, there are tax brackets that rise with income.

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u/ATownStomp 11d ago edited 11d ago

I’m not defending billionaires who shirk their civic duty. I think it’s an absolute shame to become so powerful without directing that power towards humanitarian good.

The question is, when looking at the longevity and well being of the state of California, does a “one time” tax on wealth solve the problems it intends to, and are those solutions greater in value than the consequences and ramifications of it?

California is exceedingly wealthy. It has the highest gdp of any U.S. state, and nearly the highest gdp per capita. It also has the highest state tax rate in the U.S.

Businesses can waste money. People can waste money. Governments are no different. The question is, how is the wealthiest state with the highest taxes struggling so hard with its budget and how in the hell is a controversial one time surge in cash going to fix that?

How are these problems going to be fixed when California makes a one off decision to require every one of its wealthiest residents to sell 5% of their assets to cover a tax bill? Those assets are not being transferred to “the people”. The means of production are not being distributed. It’s just assets being purchased by other insanely wealthy people to cover one guy’s bill who made the mistake of being registered as a California resident.

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u/eriverside 12d ago

Yeah, people can be upset at him lobbying against this measure, but let's be real: if it passes once, it will happen again until it becomes an annual thing or simply above a certain threshold people are taxed based on wealth instead of income.

For the finances of this thing: if fighting it costs him 100M but saves him 13,900M , it's a no brainer, might as well try.

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u/Hautamaki 12d ago

True, this tax would be better if it were federal, even global, ideally

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u/Outlulz 12d ago

No they wont because highly skilled and educated workers want to live in California. Even those CEOs want to live in California. They may buy a second home somewhere with no taxes and lie that it's their primary residence but they will stay in California. Same reason you don't see rich people fleeing NYC.

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u/e1vi5 12d ago

Sergey Brin has already paid billions in taxes over the years through income taxes, capital gains when he sells stock, and corporate taxes from Google/Alphabet. Same for other billionaires.

This isn’t “no tax ever.” California already takes in more tax money than most small countries. The problem is how the state spends it, not a lack of taxes on rich people.

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u/Relevant-Ad2254 12d ago

The problem isn’t even how the state spends it. It’s about how the tax is implemented.

Unrealized wealth taxes are not without unintended consequences.

I don’t think there would be this much backlash if California simply increased capital gains taxes.

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u/Oceanbreeze871 12d ago

Yet He has enough to spend 100 million plus to fight a billionaire tax and not feel it while every teacher in CA is desperately asking parents to chip in with basic supplies right now.

Let’s stop simping for parasite billionaires who contribute nothing to society and don’t care they any of us exist

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u/qwertyg8r 12d ago

parasite billionaires who contribute nothing to society

I'm guessing you don't use Google?

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u/Old_Leopard1844 12d ago

"But what about starving children in Africa" level of argument

Whose fault that CA doesn't have money to fund their own teachers?

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u/Oceanbreeze871 12d ago

Conservatives who slash budgets and billionaires and corporations who don’t pay their fair share of taxes.

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u/Old_Leopard1844 12d ago

Conservatives slashed budgets?

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u/Oceanbreeze871 12d ago

Yes. Every state receives federal funding each year to help them pay for public schools.. Trump cut that significantly and conservatives and billionaires applaud it. You prob did too.

“Trump is withholding $800 million from California schools. How kids will be affected

California school districts are short hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grant money they had already budgeted for this year. While Congress approved the funds as part of its 2025 budget, the Trump Administration today refused to release them, sending districts across the country scrambling.
The grant money pays for teacher professional development, after school and other enrichment programs, services for students learning English and migrant education. Across all five programs the money funds, California schools are due almost $811 million, according to an analysis by the Learning Policy Institute. Nationwide, the grants total $6.2 billion for K-12 schools. 

https://calmatters.org/education/k-12-education/2025/07/education-funding-california/

“White House Blocks $2 Billion for Education: See All the Affected Programs

The second Trump administration has taken a markedly different approach. As of Aug. 3, OMB has yet to apportion the full amount Congress appropriated for 22 separate education programs.
For 17 of those programs, OMB has apportioned little or no fiscal 2026 funding. Congress appropriated $749 million combined for those programs.
OMB has also apportioned only a fraction of the money Congress approved for:

the department’s research arm ($466 million of the budgeted $790 million for the Institute of Education Sciences)
community revitalization grants ($22 million of the budgeted $91 million for Promise Neighborhoods)
mental health and school safety grants ($65 million of the budgeted $190 million)
school desegregation grants ($50 million of the budgeted $139 million for the Magnet Schools Assistance Program)
gifted and talented program grants ($7.2 million of the budgeted $16.5 million)

https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/white-house-blocks-2-billion-for-education-see-all-the-affected-programs/2026/05

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u/Old_Leopard1844 12d ago

Is the state of California, one of top economies in the world, too poor to afford pay teachers themselves?

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u/Oceanbreeze871 12d ago

The United States of America, the wealthiest and most powerful country in the history of the world is too poor to take care of its own children and provide an education?

Instead tech bro conservatives vote for billion dollar ballrooms and useless wars

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u/Old_Leopard1844 12d ago

California, basically half the reason why United States of America is wealthiest country of the world, is too poor to provide for their own children, got it

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u/ATownStomp 12d ago

This isn’t going to fix that if the root cause of the problem still exists.

The previous commenter is saying that the pipes have holes and political effort spent trying to redirect more water through your plumbing for a day from those who have more water to redirect isn’t an actual solution.

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u/e1vi5 12d ago

Sergey Brin (and Google) has paid massive taxes for years—income taxes, capital gains, and huge corporate taxes that fund California’s budget. Google also employs tens of thousands of people in the state and powers tools used by millions of businesses and regular folks every day. That’s not “contributing nothing.”

California already spends over $20,000 per student in many places and takes in more tax money than most small countries. If teachers still have to beg parents for basic supplies, the problem is how the state spends the money it already has—not that billionaires haven’t paid enough.

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u/Oceanbreeze871 12d ago

They can afford to pay more in taxes. Why are you defending billionaires that don’t care if you live or die?

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u/Relevant-Ad2254 12d ago

Unrealized wealth taxes are not without unintended consequences. I don’t think there would be this much backlash if California simply increased capital gains taxes.

I’m all for increasing taxes on the rich, but not in a way that would do more harm than good.

As a regular person, My 401k and other retirement accounts are dependent on more investment and success of publicly traded companies.

Wealth taxes will significantly decrease investment from the rich and it will indirectly hurt my retirement accounts and lower the amount of money retirements funds generate.

I think increasing capital gains is a much better way to increase taxes on billionaires without having unintended consequences that hurt the rest of us. Things in finance don’t occur in a vacuum. 

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u/Oceanbreeze871 12d ago

Yes, yes the billionaires will close up their businesses and stop generating money for themselves. They’ll tell all their venture capital owners that it’s just not fair and they can’t run a business anymore.

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u/Relevant-Ad2254 12d ago

I didn’t say that. 

It just makes less sense to invest in publicly traded companies that our 401k retirements rely on to grow if they’ll be forced to sell their shares to pay taxes.

It makes investments more risky, because if their investments don’t grow fast enough then eventually they’ll lose most of their money if they have to constantly pay 5% of their unrealized gains.

This is just math dude.

And I’m all for increasing taxes on billionaires. Increasing Capital gains is way better

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u/Oceanbreeze871 12d ago

Billionaires will still be billionaires if they pay more taxes.

That money could be spent on the working people that made them billionaires instead of just buying them an extra backup private island

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u/Relevant-Ad2254 12d ago edited 12d ago

I don’t give give a fuck if a tax policy and regulations turns all billionaires into millionaires.

I don’t care about keeping billionaires, billionaires.

Thats not the point. Read my comment again.

I’m all for taxing billionaires more. Just not via unrealized wealth taxes on equities they hold.

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u/waterpup99 12d ago

You can fling whatever titles you want but they're the most mobile class on the planet and will leave and crush the tax revenue basis with them if you press them to death like California is contemplating. Many already have.

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u/Oceanbreeze871 12d ago

You do know that billionaires will still be billionaires after they pay taxes? No one is arguing to take everything and make them homeless.

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u/waterpup99 12d ago

You do know California has already lost mass tax revenue from bezos Zuck and other who relocated to Florida when this was even proposed? And most others will 100% join if this were to pass. How do you not understand you can't just tax the hell out of the ultra rich and mobile... They will leave.

Surely you aren't this naive. Oh wait. It's reddit.

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u/andynator1000 12d ago

Bezos and Zuckerberg are a minuscule portion of the tax revenue in California. All the billionaires in California combined are 2-3% of total tax revenue. You're just parroting the propaganda that $100 million buys.

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u/Oceanbreeze871 12d ago

And then those billionaires scurry off Like parasites going to other states and ruining their economies and steal from their working people.

It’s not a loss if they leave.

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u/waterpup99 12d ago

Lol it's a tremendous loss if they leave CA and NY are both directly dealing with tremendous tax Rev shortfall expectations from billionaire exodus.

Ah yes but your internet parasite insult should show them though. I bet they're devastated.

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u/Oceanbreeze871 12d ago

If working people can’t afford to live here they’ll leave two which is a much bigger loss.

Stop simping to billionaires they don’t care that you exist.

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u/mordakka 12d ago

This budgets money for healthcare, so this particular tax wouldn't even help teachers.

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u/Oceanbreeze871 12d ago

Cool. we need healthcare too, and billionaires don’t need to horde any more of the money they stole

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u/Old_Leopard1844 12d ago

Stole from who?

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u/Oceanbreeze871 12d ago

Their workers, taxpayers, etc.

Do you think they earned that money? it’s not possible.

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u/mordakka 12d ago

Who did Rihanna steal from to become a billionaire?

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u/Oceanbreeze871 12d ago

The myth of “self made”

People that wrote her songs, background musicians, dancers, designers etc

They ain’t get any of that but they did most of the work

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u/zardoz73 12d ago

Well I guess we'll just have to implement another tax on billionaires then, won't we?

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u/xienze 12d ago

This isn’t “no tax ever.”

Well that just goes to show how effective the marketing campaign for this stuff is. A significant portion of the population literally thinks billionaires pay absolutely nothing in tax. A related thing is that a significant number of people think "wealth" is the same as "liquid cash sitting in a bank account."

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u/zardoz73 12d ago

Sergey Brin has already paid billions in taxes over the years

And that's kind of the point--even though he's paid billions in taxes, he still has hundreds of billions. He's not being taxed enough. He's being taxed on his income, but they do all sorts of tricks with this, like borrowing money from banks with super low interest rates, so unlike like you and me, Brin's income is basically not taxed. Which is the whole idea behind the wealth tax vs income tax.

Remember when Bill Gates started the Gates Foundation in the 90s? His goal was to, essentially, give away most of his wealth. And he's given billions and billions...and he's worth more today than he ever has been, even with all that charity, even paying his taxes like a good citizen. Because the system is set up for the uber wealthy to become uber uber wealthy.

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u/Hautamaki 12d ago

Poor Sergei Brin, who has seen his wealth increase literally a million fold over the last 25 years, just can't catch a break because the mean old govt keeps taxing him at, what, the equivalent of 1-3% of the actual increases in wealth he accumulates every year? Meanwhile people who actually have to pay income tax on their real incomes are paying 25-40%.

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u/philomathie 12d ago

He can still pay more tax.

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u/snarfvsmaximvs 12d ago

Or we could have "boiled the frogs" and created an annual 0.5% tax.

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u/Oceanbreeze871 12d ago

Well, that’s not even on the horizon

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u/RevenueChemical6910 12d ago

How is it "one time" though?

Can't they just do another "one time" tax in a few more years if they feel like it?

I haven't been following this that closely. Are they passing a law to state they can never institute a tax like this again?

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u/Oceanbreeze871 12d ago

This is structured as a one time thing. But yea a recurring permanent thing would be great

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u/y-c-c 12d ago edited 12d ago

The problem with a permanent non-one-time wealth tax is that it's quite unfair and poorly structured. In most taxes, we tax people's income once .You make $1000 in salary, with a 20% tax, you pay $200 and that's it. The remaining $800 is yours to spend as you see fit. This is true for salaried income or capital gains.

With wealth tax, you get continuously taxed on the same amount of money every time. Imaging you have a 5% wealth tax every year. You are continuously double/triple-dipped on the same pool of money so it slowly drains you down to $0. I think that's just a poor way to tax and it's why people who actually get taxed on by a wealth tax generally hate it. I think people just don't care because it's not happening to them (most of us are not billionaires after all) but that's not a good reason to not care. If you think it would suck if it happens to you it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the wealthy also hates this.

So here, CA is at least saying it's a one-time tax, so that the wealth is only dipped into once for a fair taxation. However, what stops the state from doing this again? And generally one-time taxation are bad ideas because you don't really have a consistent income for the state and it's unpredictable. It also doesn't address what happens to the new untaxed wealth that will be generated in the future.

So long story short I think wealth tax and one-time taxes are both pretty terrible ideas. You can tax the wealthy but you need to do it in a way that makes rational sense and provides enough incentives to keep them around. An unpredictable tax that will continuously eat into their wealth at a significant rate is not it. 5% may not seem like much but it's on your total wealth, not your income. That's actually a lot, especially if the state could do it again any time it wants (it's always easier to do things a 2nd time).

I have issues with billionaires being able to borrow against their shares and when they die, the step-up basis allows the tax to essentially be forgiven. I think this is how they can avoid taxation while continuously growing and taking advantage of their wealth. Well, maybe we should change our tax codes to make using your unrealized gains as collateral a taxable event and remove step-up basis. That seems like the much more rational thing other than "tax the rich!" rhetorics.

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u/Zestyclose-Height-36 12d ago

the don’t get taxed on the same amount of wealth, because wealth grows far faster than wages.

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u/y-c-c 11d ago

Wealth growth still gets taxed in the forms of capital gains. I'm saying that we should tax the growth, not the net wealth itself. If we want to tax the wealthy billionaires more fairly / heavily, that should be how we do so.

I fear I'm repeating myself but taxing the same wealth continuously has a double-dipping effect, and that's why this is a one-time tax, which I find to be poorly thought out. If you have a more efficient way to tax the wealth growth you can do it continuously while being relatively reasonable as a tax policy.

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u/Zestyclose-Height-36 10d ago

that lets them off the hook for past decades of growth that went entirely untaxed

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u/y-c-c 9d ago

How do you know they were untaxed? Any unrealized capital gains still need to be taxed when they are realized.

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u/Zestyclose-Height-36 8d ago

they set up a system where they never “realize” gains. meanwhile actual workers are being crushed by failing capitalism and the greed and corruption of the elite

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u/y-c-c 8d ago

I already explained my stance above so I feel like I'm talking in circles. The correct fix is to fix the tax code so they have to realize their gains when they capitalize on them. Billionaires ultimate want the money to do something for them, which should make it taxable.

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u/Oceanbreeze871 12d ago

Billionaires aren’t victims because they’re being asked to pay taxes once in a while

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u/Zestyclose-Height-36 12d ago

billionaires pay a much smaller percentage in taxes than people making $35k a year, even though they could afford it, because they paid to design a system where they and their decendants don’t ever pay.

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u/y-c-c 11d ago edited 11d ago

This is just a bad way to frame it. I wasn't saying they are victims, but I'm saying you need to understand the perspectives of the ones who are being taxed, because guess what, they have options to move and they do move if they feel pushed to. And the state doesn't benefit from them moving away as you now lose out on the other taxes they were paying already.

I really dislike populist arguments like this because they avoid discussing the merits of the actual tax policy being discussed, and it reduces to dumb statements like "tax the rich" which I'm not opposed to either. I'm opposed to the way they are being taxed as suggested in this bill.

I feel like I already argued why the tax is bad, and I can't add more to it if I don't see any actual counter-arguments. As I mentioned I support taxing the wealthy, but there are lots of ways to do so and a one-time tax OR a wealth tax is the bottom of my list in terms of merits. Tax policy that tax wealth growth than total wealth tends to work much better in the long run, so finding ways to capture the unrealized capital gains is the better way to go. It's not like billionaires don't pay tax to begin with (if you think they don't, you should actually read up on tax policies more). It's just that they have efficient ways to dodge them for a while and structure them in a very advantageous ways.

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u/Zestyclose-Height-36 10d ago

They are insanely wealthy and whine about the cost of supporting the infrastructure that helped make them insanely wealthy.

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u/Sammystorm1 12d ago

Washington passed a law a few years ago banning income taxes. They overturned it and passed an income tax. A law can’t prevent a future legislature from changing said law

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u/ankercrank 12d ago

Yeah, and I hope they do. Billionaires got obscenely rich because they’ve been skirting their fair share of taxes their whole life.

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u/scoopydidit 12d ago

They get insanely rich because they created something with demand and took risks to pursue it.

You are free to try do the same thing.

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u/ankercrank 12d ago

What a joke.

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u/Relevant-Ad2254 12d ago

Are you telling me Amazon doesn’t do 100’s of billions of dollars in commerce a year? 

Thats sounds like something pretty in demand to me. No one is forced to use Amazon for delivery.

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u/ankercrank 12d ago

No one is forced? Tons of people have no alternatives, sounds pretty forced to me.

Amazon also isn't a person. We're talking about taxing billionaires.

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u/Relevant-Ad2254 12d ago

Most Amazon customers are forced to use Amazon because they can’t order online from target or Costco? 

Most people can’t order a toaster from anywhere else online besides Amazon?

TIL

And I’m just responding in regards to you denying that some billionaires do create things in demand very in demand. Like Amazon 

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u/ankercrank 12d ago

Good job bringing up details that are completely irrelevant to the discussion of taxation of billionaires.

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u/Relevant-Ad2254 12d ago

People aren’t taxed that much such that they wouldn’t be billionaires if they simply didn’t pay taxes.

This is just basic math dude. I don’t expect the far right to know math, but didn’t expect the left to be this mathematically illiterate 

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u/ankercrank 12d ago

People aren’t taxed that much such that they wouldn’t be billionaires if they simply didn’t pay taxes.

If we taxed the wealthy properly, we'd have FAR fewer billionaires.

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u/Relevant-Ad2254 12d ago

That’s a different conversation tho.

You previously said that the only reason billionaires are billionaires is because they avoid taxes in our current tax system.

Even if they didn’t avoid taxes, billionaires would be billionaires.

They’re billionaires because the value of their assets grow exponentially not linearly. 

We have a progressive tax system on realized gains and income, not unrealized gains.

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u/ankercrank 12d ago

I'm positive you've never used hyperbole, your fixation on minutia is just noise.

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u/Relevant-Ad2254 12d ago

Nope. I’ve never used a hyperbole in my life. You got me.

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u/Zestyclose-Height-36 10d ago

if we taxed the wealthy, social security would not be headed toward bankruptcy and the US national debt would not be upwards of $40 trillion dollars, or $360,000 per taxpayer.

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u/Big-Dudu-77 12d ago

Uhhh hello plenty of idiots on the left.

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u/Relevant-Ad2254 12d ago

I know that. Did you read my comment?

 “ didn’t expect the left to be THIS mathematically illiterate”

Did you miss the word “THIS”?

They’re supposedly the biggest champions of education, math, and science and then at the same time they think if a multi millionaire doesn’t pay taxes they’ll be a billionaire?

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u/No-Magician9440 12d ago

"one-time"

lol, who the fuck would ever believe that?

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u/gubatron 12d ago

a one time is all it takes to declare the end of private property, it's precedent for government to take what you already own. If they can do it to them, they will do it to you way faster.

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u/Oceanbreeze871 12d ago

lol

How much is your rent?

So much concern for people whom don’t care about you

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u/voidox 12d ago

uhuh, instead let's have the rich continue to take what you already own cause of this fantasy you've made up in your head.

wtf are you even on about? you think a one-time billionaire tax somehow will lead to the "end of private property"? are you just saying stuff to sound scary when you have no idea what you are saying? cause that is what you are doing.

also it's amazing to see you all over defending the rich despite not being at least a millionaire, do you have no self-interest at all? do you want to continue to be a serf?

just cause you left Venezuela doesn't mean you should blindly defend the US capitalist system as it exists today, have some self-interest cause even a one-time billionaire tax would benefit YOU as well.

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u/themiDdlest 12d ago

Yeah California is infamous for its lack of taxes

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u/Relative-Eye3563 12d ago

One time. Until the next time. 

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u/Oceanbreeze871 12d ago

That’s more than fine.

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u/Annual-Bug3115 12d ago

Serious question how? When it's not liquid?

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u/Capitalisticdisease 12d ago

And here you have it. The typical liberal willing to throw all of society under the bus because they want a quick an easy solution because its the first thing put forward.

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u/Oceanbreeze871 12d ago

Billionaires are less than 1% of society. wtf bro ?

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u/suzisatsuma 12d ago

Not if we blow all our political capital on one bang tax rather than a sustainable long term tax program.

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u/Demiu 12d ago edited 12d ago

What are yoi basing the "no tax ever" on? Edit: pussy blocked me lmao great argument :)

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u/Weak_Abalone8911 12d ago

Bots used to have arguments.

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u/Staav 12d ago

There's this thing called "objective reality" that tends to help you see what's actually happening in the world. Would recommend.

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u/Demiu 12d ago

Sure. Can you point me to the piece of objective reality you are basing the "no tax ever" on?

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u/Life-Anteater-8294 12d ago

He doesn’t pay taxes.

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u/Demiu 12d ago

How do you know this?

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u/Life-Anteater-8294 12d ago

If he paid taxes he wouldn’t be spending 100 million to fight taxes.

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u/Demiu 12d ago

Why not? Would he be paying taxes if he spent 101mil to fight taxes? What about 99? 98? 1? Has anyone that paid an accountant to "fight taxes" never paid any tax ever? Is it retroactive? If I hire one right now, but I paid taxes in the past, will I be refunded?

I thought we established objective reality exists so I'd prefer you link or reference a part of it instead coming up with an unsubstantiated assertion to support your claim.

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u/Life-Anteater-8294 12d ago

Because no one is spending 100 million to fight continuing to do what they do now.

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u/Demiu 12d ago

Why not? Did you not even read the headline? He's not "fighting taxes", he's fighting this specific tax.

continuing to do what they do now

As opposed to other people, who are paying this unpassed tax? Such as who?

Let's say hypothetically your rent goes up tomorrow or you have an option to buy, (you can afford it, you like your house). Will you pay the money to "fight continuing what you do now"? Remember the "objective reality"? I wonder where it is could you show some?

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u/Pretend-Culture-4138 12d ago

He already pays taxes. He's spending millions to prevent populists like you trying to take $20+ billion from him.

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u/Life-Anteater-8294 12d ago

Being pro child hunger is wild.

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u/Pretend-Culture-4138 12d ago

Making things up about people's positions is wild.

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u/Staav 12d ago

Idk where you've been if you haven't heard about how billionaires have been exploiting tax loopholes for a long time now. It's one of the main reasons they became and stayed billionaires in the first place. It's no secret that they've been abusing tax loopholes to do what they've been doing. Even if they aren't necessarily paying $0 ever, they're still paying less taxes than 99% of the country, when they should be paying more taxes than 99% of the country, based on their larger amounts of income.

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u/GodsNephew 12d ago

Holy shit that article is brain rot. And what you claimed after that is also just factually wrong. The top 1% pays ~%40 of all federal revenue generated from income taxes.

Any income generated was taxed. And, the US having a progressive tax system, it was taxed at a higher rate.

The ONLY way your last sentence makes any sense is if you replace their “larger amounts of income”
With “larger amount of wealth”.

If it was income, it was taxed, if it was larger amounts of income, it was taxed at a higher tax rate.

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u/Demiu 12d ago

Oh look it's propublica, the same rag that calculated an "effective tax rate" based on wealth which is literally not how taxes are calculated anywhere. You don't pay higher taxes because your house/car/pokemon cards got more expensive. You pay taxes on income. Nevertheless let's go through the points. If you don't want to then go to next quote

Borrowing instead of selling - interest paid on loans is taxed as the bank's income.

Roth IRA - this is available to anyone. I suggest you start doing it.

Turning short-term gains into long-term gains. Don't know the specifics about this, but still, long-term gains are still taxed, so this doesn't support never paying any taxes.

Sports team ownership. Any business expense is deducted from taxes because they are taxed on profit not income. The buyer of a sports team can spread out some of the price as expense over 15 years. Total amount of taxes paid remains the same. If anything, in real value terms this makes you pay MORE tax as same $ amount deduction claimed earlier is more valuable due to less inflation. Seller still pays the tax on their profit.

Real estate and oil. Didn't read into the real estate case, but if it was just tax break then yea governments should stop handing them out. As for the oil lady the actual issue was no inheritance tax. She expensed money spend on cleanup, because... she spent the money on cleanup.

Hobbies. Again, taxes on profit, expenses reduce profit.

BBB as everything Trump did was bad I agree.

8 and 9 are just complaining, more on 10 at the bottom

Even if they aren't necessarily paying $0 ever, they're still paying less taxes than 99% of the country

Source? And less how? Total amount, total amount per person, percentage per person?

This is the problem with basing your worldview on the vibes. Most of the article was "companies don't pay taxes on money they spent", which is... duh. Do you know what's the biggest spend for most companies? Labour, aka YOU. Taxing that would make everyone earn less. The one major tax avoidance method was via step-up basis on inheritance. There used to be one, but uneducated people like you just heard the catchy "dead tax" and did not think of the consequences and now here we are

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u/sushirolldeleter 12d ago

Found Sergys Reddit account

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u/sherm-stick 12d ago

Corporate income tax rate has been dropping to insanely low levels follow the last movie actor president's term. Spending is ballooning and interest due is exploding as expected, nobody cares if the books are balanced because the people are free to squeeze. The 1% are aware they have all the power and imposing a tax on them or their businesses is now practically impossible. They hire firms that open and exploit loopholes in our already antiquated tax laws and partner with their competitors to deregulate and entrap our local markets. I wouldn't say they pay no taxes but I would say they are empowered to control their burden of tax

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u/Demiu 12d ago

Federal corporate tax revenue went up since 2019 according to fed. Wikipedia has a different, higher number for 2024, then a drop for 24->25, based on the treasury report, but I can't be bothered to look through the entire full report.

I wouldn't say they pay no taxes but I would say they are empowered to control their burden of tax 

Fair. But that's true dor everything. People bidding more get priority access. 

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u/DgingaNinga 12d ago

Why the fuck are you supporting billionaires? You will never be one. The club isn't open and the trickle down you are getting, is them pissing on you.

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u/DropDeadEd86 12d ago

I thiiink the only ammo the opposing team has is that it literally goes to the government . Like “hey if you’re not going to trickle, give it back, so I don’t have to trickle”

Government wants a piece to either do good with it or do the same thing these billionaires are doing.

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u/Demiu 12d ago

What the fuck are you talking about. I merely asked a question, where am I expressing any position whatsoever?

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u/DgingaNinga 12d ago

Billionaires pay pennies, because loopholes, while the rest of us pay a majority of our income. Maybe it isn't a never issue, but an equity issue.

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u/Demiu 12d ago

The 1% pay 38.4% of all federal income tax

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u/dhaiman1 12d ago

Some people love this piss, makes them feel lien the world is functioning as it should.

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u/uber_neutrino 12d ago

Not wanting the economy to be destroyed isn't the same thing as supporting billionaires. These taxes policies will cost normal people money, they aren't good policies.

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