On Tuesday, California voters will decide whether to enact Proposition 40, a one-time, 5% tax on the net worth of about 250 California billionaires.

In recent months, a number of California billionaires and their apologists in the media and in government have come out swinging against the ballot measure. I’m not a billionaire, but I’m a Californian wealthy enough to know that they have no valid reason to fight the proposition. For multimillionaires like me, paying a 5% tax would not change our lives materially, and if we can afford this as people well below the billionaire line, certainly those at the very top can too.

Prop 40 would enact the first tax on billionaires anywhere in the world, with organizers estimating it would raise roughly $100bn in revenue, most of which would be directed to healthcare to make up for federal cuts from Trump and Republicans’ 2025 tax bill. Six Nobel Prize-winning economists said it would “kickstart a movement to tax ultra-high-net-worth individuals in other states – and eventually at the federal level and in other countries”.

Opponents’ primary objection to Prop 40 is that it will spark an exodus of the state’s billionaires, who would run for the........

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