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Posted on 11/24/2025 4:48:10 PM PST by Bullish
IRS Study shows California is losing a taxpayer every minute to states like Florida, Texas, and North Carolina
California Governor Gavin Newsom is pushing a retroactive billionaire tax targeting the roughly 220 billionaires residing in California in 2025, ignoring that these individuals are the most financially mobile and can live anywhere. Expecting them to remain in the state as if they will happily and willingly hand over even more of their wealth surely must be facetious.
SEIU is sponsoring the “2026 Billionaires Tax Act.” The measure, recently listed on the Attorney General’s website, would impose a one-time 5% tax on individual wealth exceeding $1 billion, Marc Joffe wrote for the Globe this week. He explains the measure and more:
Although the tax would be levied based on 2026 net worth, it would apply to billionaires who resided in California in 2025, so theoretically it could not be avoided. Of course, billionaires are well equipped to defend themselves in court, so the constitutionality of this unprecedented tax will be rigorously tested.
Proponents assert that the measure would not cause billionaires to flee the state because of the one-time nature of the tax. Unlike federal wealth taxes floated by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, the SEIU tax would not be applied each year.
But the flaw in this argument is obvious: if the state could impose a wealth tax once, it could do so again and again. So, yes, billionaires might well leave if this measure passes.
Why are California businesses and residents fleeing the once-Golden State in droves? We’ve asked and answered this question many times.
California has been bleeding residents and their tax revenue for many years with moves to states with no income tax or very low income tax: Florida, Texas, Arizona, Idaho, Tennessee, South Carolina, Nevada, and even Washington State.
California’s own Chevron Oil Company moved its headquarters to Houston, Texas from San Ramon, CA where it has been based since 1879, one of the biggest businesses to flee the Golden State. Chevron is in good company joining X/Twitter, Space X, Oracle, Hewlett Packard, Charles Schwab, and Toyota Motor North America, Nissei America, Inc., The Joe Rogan Experience, Gordon Ramsay North America, The Rubin Report, to name just a few of the businesses leaving California because of the state’s leftist/Marxist politics and regulatory environment.
Yet Gov. Newsom and Democrats are doubling down and still gouging taxpayers and businesses with some of the highest taxes, fees and draconian regulations in the nation.
“Despite the towering deficit, Newsom and the Democratic Party continue to spend wildly on a boondoggle bullet train and to engage in last-minute redistricting to gerrymander the state further,” Jonathan Turley writes. “They have also moved to extend Medi-Cal to illegal immigrants at a massive cost to the budget. Newsom is also pushing ahead with a Commission to pay reparations to black citizens.”
Turley reports on just how bad California is:
“A study of IRS data by the National Taxpayers Union Foundation which found that California is losing a taxpayer roughly every minute, as states like Florida, Texas, and North Carolina attract new residents due to lower taxes and higher standards of living.
In comparison, Florida gains a new taxpayer every 2 minutes and 9 seconds while Texas gains one every 2 minutes and 53 seconds.
The result has been a bonanza for Florida, which is now collecting $4 billion more per year for its budget.
The states losing taxpayers at the fastest rate are California, New York, and Illinois. Here is the rate of loss:
California: every 1 minute and 44 seconds
New York: every 2 minutes and 23 seconds
Illinois: every 6 minutes and 4 seconds.
Massachusetts: every 11 minutes and 38 seconds
New Jersey: every 14 minutes and 14 seconds.
In 2023, we asked Why Did 352 California Companies Flee to Other States in Three Years? Here’s why: Low-to-no income tax states gained $391 billion from California during 2018 to 2021, coinciding with Gavin Newsom’s election as governor.
As Economist Art Laffer and Chapman Economics Professor James Doti correctly said not long ago, Gov. “Newsom doesn’t appear to see is the deleterious long-term effects of a highly progressive tax system. Case in point: The ‘one-percenters’ who pay 50% of the tax are voting with their feet by leaving California in droves.”
They explained that the ten states with the lowest income taxes including Florida and Texas, gained a cumulative net inflow from all Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) classes of $391 billion from California during the entire 2018 to 2021 period. Note that 2018 was the final year of Democrat Governor Jerry Brown. Gov. Newsom ran for governor in 2018 and was elected. He took office January of 2019, so the 2019-2021 belongs to Gov. Gavin Newsom.
“The 10 states that ranked the highest in income taxes — California, New York and New Jersey are in this group — lost a cumulative net inflow in AGI of $391 billion. The fact that the 10 states with the lowest income taxes gained in AGI the same amount as the loss in AGI for the 10 states with the highest income taxes is not a coincidence.” …
Where did these companies go?
Most went to Texas. Here’s why:
“Texas offers a combination of unique competitive business advantages that no other state can claim: a business-friendly climate—with no corporate or personal income tax—along with a highly skilled and diverse workforce, easy access to global markets, robust infrastructure and a reasonable regulatory environment,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott said when he recently announced that another major California business was moving to Texas. “California-based Ruiz Foods is moving its corporate HQ to Frisco,” he said. “With an unrivaled business climate and skilled, diverse workforce, Texas is America’s #1 economic destination….”
Newsom might find that lowering tax rates results in higher rather than lower tax revenues, as the Laffer Curve has shown time and time again. The Laffer Curve. (Photo: laffercenter.org)
“The Laffer Curve showcases the intricate relationship between tax rates and government revenue, a concept popularized by economist Arthur Laffer in 1974. This theory posits that both excessively high and low tax rates result in reduced tax revenues, suggesting that tax cuts can potentially enhance revenue collection.”
“As drawn, the Laffer Curve shows that at a tax rate of 0%, the government would collect no tax revenue, just as it would collect no tax revenue at a tax rate of 100% because no one would be willing to work for an after-tax wage of zero.
Turley has a new book coming out, Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution, in which he explains “there is a common myth that the top five percent of this country do not ‘pay their fair share.’ However, putting that debate aside, the question is whether it will produce more revenue than it costs the state in the long run. As these politicians campaign on clipping the “fat cats” who are not paying their fair share, many are likely to follow the exodus to lower tax states with greater fiscal discipline.”
Turley concludes, “what is clear is that Democratic states are not showing any greater fiscal discipline as they careen toward budget meltdowns.”
And to think that Gavin Newsom is running for President on this atrocious record…
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Is he trying to extort money under the table to drop this proposal? It was the very first thing I thought of.
I don’t have a problem with folks from the Pacific states moving in Texas as long as they agree to never vote here.
Grabbin’ Noisome is a protégé of the Getty Oil fortune, at one time the richest family in the world. Hence, this is guaranteed to backfire.
The thing about one-time money injections is that they happen one time. $1B in Gavin bucks will disappear like a vapor.
After that even the dumb rich people will fly away.
Riiiiiiiiiiiight.........
The only people voting for democrats in CA are illegals
“SEIU is sponsoring the “2026 Billionaires Tax Act.”
Because of course they are.
It’s the Illegal Alien Union.
We came to take what you have, Greengo!
Who doesn’t like a surprise retroactive tax?
As Kalifornia goes, so goes the nation. Newsom is just the messenger and the dirty works thug for the NWO/WEF criminal pukes.
“One time” — LOL...That’s like asking a shark to take only one bite of flesh after it smells blood.
That means they will have to sell assets to pay their 5% California confiscation.
Who will decide the market value of a private company?
And - just a one time tax?
That will be the day!
That is so wrong, and so disconnected from the reality of how messed up California is... Harris won White men in California by 12 points. There is no good group of people in California.
Idaho tracks the voter registration of people who move here from other states. We find that people from CA relocating to ID register Republican far more than Democrat.
An EXIT TAX.
“Chevron Oil Company moved its headquarters to Houston, Texas from San Ramon, CA where it has been based since 1879”
Actually, Chevron was in downtown San Francisco, on Market Street, until 2001. the front was a like a moat with a bridge going over it to the front entrance, but instead of water, it had tulip beds. Maybe they got tired of all the street protests in front of the building.
No state government ever needs to care about their budget because there will always be people to tax and financial institutions okay with lending to them.
Is that similar to the Berlin Wall?
I look at it this way, the many billionaires in that state and elsewhere in the U.S. likely know to keep very little if any of their wealth in America.
Gavin doesn't get it - these folks are never coming back... Gavin's a friggin' idiot.
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