You’re paying taxes — why aren’t billionaires?

Every spring, millions of Californians sit down at our kitchen tables, gather our W-2s and receipts, and do what’s expected of us — we pay our taxes.  

But this tax season, there’s a glaring truth more people are starting to notice: the wealthiest among us play by an entirely different set of rules. 

In California, roughly 200 billionaires collectively hold about $2 trillion in wealth. Much of that fortune goes virtually untouched by income taxes. Why? Because it isn’t treated as “income” at all. 

Instead, it sits in stocks, assets and other investments, growing year after year, often tax-free. Billionaires can borrow against that wealth, live lavishly off loans, and avoid selling assets that would trigger taxes. Thanks to longstanding federal and state loopholes, this system allows extraordinary fortunes to expand while contributing comparatively little back into the public systems that make that wealth possible. 

Meanwhile, nurses, teachers, construction workers and small business owners don’t have that luxury. Their income is taxed regularly and transparently. They can’t defer their wages into untaxed stock portfolios or leverage complex financial strategies to shrink their........

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