California's Billionaire Tax

Описание: Should we tax the wealth of billionaires? There is a proposal that is being spearheaded by one of the largest unions in California to do just that. It is a billionaire wealth tax act, meaning that it doesn't tax their income, it taxes their wealth. And wealth taxes are tricky because wealth is typically tied up in things like stocks. So one of the big details of this wealth tax is that the voting power is the determinant of how much the value of the stock is. And that is a big deal for a lot of people in technology because a lot of times they will own a small chunk of the company on paper, but they'll control a lot of voting shares in the company, especially because they founded the company in many cases. So, for example, in the case of the Google guys, their tax bill under this billionaire tax act would be more than $30 billion. That could even force them to sell so many shares in their company that they would not have control of it anymore. These billionaire tax concepts are getting more popular. You've seen Jimmy Talrico in Texas floating these ideas. Ro Khanna, the current representative of Silicon Valley in the U.S. Congress, is in support of this. Rhode Island is floating a billionaire tax. Zoran Mamdami says there shouldn't be billionaires. Illinois is floating a billionaire tax. But billionaires already do pay a lot of taxes. And they also are one of the key drivers of the economy. These innovation-oriented businesses are massive when they are successful. And the billionaire wealth tax in California has accelerated a trend of people leaving the state. They're going to places like Texas. But this is becoming something that is a theme in the Democrat Party. So in this video, we're going to look at what is being proposed in California, who is supporting it, and question what the future holds for billionaires and wealth taxes.