{"id":50113,"date":"2026-09-10T13:16:20","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T20:16:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=50113"},"modified":"2026-09-10T13:16:22","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T20:16:22","slug":"guest-editorial-tax-california-billionaires-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2026\/09\/10\/guest-editorial-tax-california-billionaires-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Guest Editorial: Tax California Billionaires Now!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by\u00a0Martin Bennett<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0September 7, 2026 (BeyondChron.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This Labor Day it\u2019s essential to highlight that reducing inequality is the main purpose of labor unions through collective bargaining for living wages, comprehensive benefits, and improved workplace health and safety conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, unions provide a political voice for their members and lobby for legislation, such as restrictions on child labor, a minimum wage, the forty-hour week, and Social Security, that benefit all working people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently, the California Labor Federation, representing 1300 affiliated unions with 2.3 million members, endorsed Proposition 40, the California Billionaire Tax Act on the November ballot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prop 40 is a one-time 5% wealth tax spread over five years on California\u2019s 250 billionaires who lived here on January 1, 2026. Prop 40 defines wealth as the value of stocks, bonds, trusts, and specified property holdings, minus outstanding debt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the California Budget and Policy Project, if approved, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg\u2019s net worth would decline from $200 billion to $190 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why is such a tax necessary?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, wealth inequality has soared nationally and in California. A report by UC Berkeley economists Gabriel Zucman and Emmanuel Saez, and Jasper Boll of the Paris School of Economics, finds that from 1982 to 2026, California billionaires\u2019 wealth has skyrocketed by 38-fold to $2.3 trillion, while the real family income of the average California family has merely doubled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, the measure would generate about $100 billion in revenue that the state desperately needs because of the massive Trump tax cuts for the wealthy last year and the slashing of health care funding (H.R. 1).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that up to 1.6 million California Medi-Cal recipients could lose health insurance. Eighty-three California hospitals are at risk of closing, and up to 145,000 health care workers could be laid off, according to the UC Berkeley Labor Center. Ninety percent of the Prop 40 revenue will backfill these health care cuts, with the balance dedicated to public education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Third, Zucman, Saez, and Boll claim that billionaires pay less in taxes than the average taxpayer, relative to income. They calculate that between 2018 and 2020, across all local, state, and federal taxes, billionaires paid just 24 percent of their income in taxes, whereas the typical taxpayer paid 30 percent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main reason is that both the federal government and California tax investment income or capital gains (about 72 percent of billionaire wealth) only when stock is sold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most billionaires earn very little in salaries, such as Zuckerberg\u2019s, which is $1 a year. They borrow tax-free against their colossal wealth to pay for ongoing expenses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The billionaire tax provides a remedy by taxing all wealth regardless of whether it has been realized or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The argument opponents make is that if Prop 40 passes, billionaires will leave the state, resulting in the loss of capital and jobs. However, there is no historical evidence to support this assertion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sociologist Cristobal Young, author of The Myth of Millionaire Tax Flight (2017), studied 13 years of millionaire tax records nationwide and found that only 2.4 percent of millionaires moved to another state annually, compared with 2.9 percent of the population at large.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Young also researched California millionaires after the voters in 2012 approved the largest tax increase ever on top earners. Two years after the ballot initiative, the state experienced a loss of just .04 percent of millionaire residents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Studies reached similar conclusions for other states boosting taxes on the wealthiest, including New Jersey in 2020, New York in 2021, and Massachusetts in 2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The research has found that 60 percent of California millionaires are older than 50 years; most have children and are socially and professionally tied to where they made their money. With children in school, property ownership, and extensive professional and social connections, they are unlikely to move for tax reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, California tech billionaires depend on skilled professionals who are graduates of UC and CSU, and on innovation that is a byproduct of the exchange of ideas among tech workers across companies clustered in places like Silicon Valley and San Francisco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

California billionaires benefit immensely from the publicly financed infrastructure of universities, transportation, and healthcare. It\u2019s time for them to pay their fair share to offset the pending catastrophic health care cuts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Martin J. Bennett is Instructor Emeritus of History at Santa Rosa Junior College and a consultant for UNITE HERE Local 2. He is also a delegate to the North Bay Labor Council AFL-CIO.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Martin Bennett<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

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by\u00a0Martin Bennett\u00a0on\u00a0September 7, 2026 (BeyondChron.org) This Labor Day it\u2019s essential to highlight that reducing inequality is the main purpose of labor unions through collective bargaining for living wages, comprehensive benefits, and improved workplace health and safety conditions. Moreover, unions provide a political voice for their members and lobby for legislation,… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2072],"tags":[1078],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50113"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50113"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50114,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50113\/revisions\/50114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}