California: taxing people who aren't there

American Thinker ^ | 11 Dec, 2025 | Mike McDaniel

[MtnClimber]

As the old aphorism goes: “Don’t tax you; don’t tax me. Tax that fellow behind the tree.” Nobody likes paying taxes, but most Americans accept them as a necessary evil and are willing to pay their fair share, unless politicians waste those tax dollars in extraordinarily—well—wasteful ways, or steal them outright.

I refer, of course, to California, where, as the classic Eagle’s song Hotel California goes: “You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.”

California, it’s no secret, is in deep financial trouble. In 2022, Gavin Newsom bragged about a $97.5 billion dollar surplus. By the 2024-25 budget, that surplus turned into an estimated $73 billion deficit. By the end of 2025, it’s likely far worse and virtually no one trusts state government’s estimates.

A substantial part of the problem has been grotesque government overspending and fraud that reportedly makes Minnesota’s fraud totals look like couch cushion change. Newsom’s high-speed-rail-to-nowhere debacle hasn’t helped. And worse, Americans get to vote with their feet and U-Hauls. California is losing a taxpayer every one minute and 44 seconds of every day. This includes billionaires, of which California used to have a reasonably large supply.

What to do; what to do? Newsom and the one-party Democrat legislature know: retroactively tax fleeing billionaires!

California Democrats are pushing the retroactive billionaire tax targeting the roughly 220 billionaires residing in California in 2025. It signals not just desperation in the face of crippling debt and overspending but a recognition that California is chasing its highest earners out of the state.

The “2026 Billionaires Tax Act” would impose a one-time 5% tax on individual wealth exceeding $1 billion. While technically using 2026 wealth figures, it would apply to billionaires who resided in California in 2025.

[Ronaldus Magnus III]

California Tax Franchise Board

Thirty years ago, I lived and worked in California. I filed my Federal Tax Return. I did the math on my California taxes, and determined I had a refund of $40 or so. I did not file it, and got busy with life. Later that year, I received a very stern letter from the California Tax Franchise Board. If I did not file and pay, I would not be able to renew my car registration, renew my license, etc. I had kept the return and paperwork in a file. I completed the return, mailed it in, and received my refund.

The stern letter was a perfect example of the power of the State.