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The tax that terrifies billionaires isn’t about taking their money. It’s about making them count it
California has just raised a question that the West has been putting off for far too long. The proposal, which the California secretary of state says could be included on the November 2026 ballot, calls for a one-off, extraordinary tax of up to 5% on net worth exceeding $1 billion, with 90% of the revenue allocated to healthcare and 10% to education and food.
The text, filed with the attorney general’s office, doesn’t mention expropriating companies or punishing anyone: it speaks of funding basic services in a society capable of generating immense fortunes while its infrastructure crumbles.
The reaction from some of Silicon Valley’s best-known figures has been predictable: talk of capital flight, the destruction of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, stifling innovation all the usual arguments: if those who have benefited most from the economic, legal, educational, scientific, and infrastructural environment are asked to contribute proportionally, the entrepreneurs will up sticks. In other words, blackmail. The problem is that no one stops founding a company that could be worth billions simply because, in the hypothetical event of accumulating more than a billion dollars in personal wealth, they would have to pay a one-off tax. Companies are created out of…
