wealth tax

How the Billionaire Tax Could Make California Poorer

One upcoming ballot measure would expand the state's taxing power. A lesser-known measure would limit it. Which will win?

Veronique de Rugy | 5.28.2026 12:02 AM

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(Illustration: Midjourney)

Californians will face two competing tax measures this November. The first is the Billionaire Tax Act, a onetime, 5 percent levy on the accumulated net worth of the state's richest residents. Lesser known is the Retirement and Personal Savings Protection Act, which would draw constitutional lines around what Sacramento can and cannot tax, prohibiting new levies on retirement accounts, personal savings, and individually owned assets and banning retroactive taxation.

Everyone with even just a little bit of money set aside—not just the California billionaires targeted by the wealth tax—should understand what these two measures represent.

Start with the Billionaire Tax Act. The gap between what it promises and what it would deliver is stark. Joshua Rauh of Stanford University has run the numbers with his Hoover Institution colleagues, and the results cast doubt on the prospect of any revenue gain whatsoever.

Proponents claim the tax would raise $100 billion. Rauh's team found that billionaires have already been voting with their feet: Larry Ellison left California in 2020, and six others, including Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, departed between the proposal's........

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