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California Gov. Gavin Newsom acknowledged that the state’s proposed wealth tax is bad economics. Newsom said he feels vindicated in opposing the proposed wealth tax after reports showed some of California’s wealthiest residents moving money and businesses out of the state, warning the measure would damage the economy and drive away investment. “This is my fear,” Newsom said in a Politico interview on Monday. “It’s just what I warned against. It’s happening.” “The evidence is in. The impacts are very real — not just substantive economic impacts in terms of the revenue, but start-ups, the indirect impacts of … people...

It's really starting to look like Rep. Ro Khanna's push for a California tax on wealth is going to be the biggest own goal in the state's recent history. As you may recall, this whole thing started with a plan by the SEIU to push a "one-time" 5% tax on about 180 billionaires who live in the state. Gov. Newsom came out against the plan but Rep. Khanna, who represents Silicon Valley, announced he supported it. When it was pointed out to Khanna that some billionaires would leave the state to avoid the retroactive tax, he made a smug joke...

I just wrote about some of the billionaires fleeing California to avoid the proposed "one time" wealth tax which would take 5% of everything they own. But the LA Times points out it's not just the very wealthy who are fleeing the state. Once again, California topped a list put together by U-Haul showing the most out-migration.U-Haul’s survey of the more than 2.5 million one-way trips using its vehicles in the U.S. last year showed that the gap between the number of people leaving and the number arriving was higher in California than in any other state.While the Golden State...

Larry Page, the Google co-founder and world’s second-richest person, has reportedly left California amid concerns about a wealth tax on billionaires. Mr Page has moved the registrations of several entities, including his family office and flying car business from California to Delaware, according to filings with the states. He has also personally moved out of the state ahead of a potential vote on a 5pc wealth tax, according to Business Insider, which first reported the move.

Billionaires including Peter Thiel, the tech venture capitalist, and Larry Page, a co-founder of Google, are considering cutting or reducing their ties to California by the end of the year because of a proposed ballot measure that could tax the state’s wealthiest residents, according to five people familiar with their thinking. Mr. Thiel, 58, who owns a home in the Hollywood Hills and operates a personal investment firm from Los Angeles, has explored opening an office for that firm, Thiel Capital, in another state, and spending more time outside of California, three of the people said. Other billionaires who appear...

Washington State’s unofficial state motto has long been “Al-ki” which means either “bye and bye” or “by and by” in Chinook. The former meaning now seems official as Gov. Jay Inslee pushes for a “wealth tax.” Wealthy citizens are already saying bye to the state in anticipation of what one Democratic billionaire recently called a “boneheaded” move. The problem is that rich people can move. Unlike fixed assets like a mansion, they can take their wealth and taxes to other states without such laws. The post from Senate Democrats supporting Senate Bill 5486 said, “The first $250 million of assessed...

That fetid gust of hot air you may have detected wafting from Republican and conservative social media postings over the last day or two was a fabricated claim that Kamala Harris is plotting to tax everyone’s unrealized capital gains if she becomes president. That would be a departure from current law, which taxes capital gains only when the underlying assets are sold, or “realized.” That it’s a mythical allegation hasn’t stopped right-wingers and GOP functionaries from hand-wringing over the economic implications of any such change, and over the purportedly horrible impact on average Americans. Here, for instance, is the far-right...

In President Joe Biden’s proposal in the Fiscal Year 2025 Budget of the United States Government, and more specifically in the General Explanations of the Administration’s FY 2025 Revenue Proposals, the Biden administration has proposed a slate of bold shifts in tax policy that could redefine high income tax planning and investment strategies. Among the most striking initiatives in the FY2025 Budget Proposal is a set of proposals taxing unrealized gains—a concept ---SNIP-- . A shift in tax policy towards tapping revenue streams in unrealized gains is almost certainly on the horizon-

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a part of President Trump's 2017 'Tax Cuts and Jobs Act' that levied a tax on capital appreciation is constitutional. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the majority opinion. Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch dissented. The court ruled 7-2 that the mandatory repatriation tax, or MRT, is constitutional under the taxation regimes defined in Article I and the 16th Amendment. In short, the MRT imposed a one-time requirement for US citizens and companies to repatriate money held overseas.In 2005, Charles and Kathleen Moore invested $40,000 in an Indian business named KisanKraft, which marketed power tools...

Wealth taxes are like a specter in search of a host, and an already overtaxed New England state may be the first to succumb. Vermont lawmakers want to tax residents’ unrealized gains, hoping to finally break the barrier that’s kept them from draining asset values year after year. The state’s top tax legislator has spent recent weeks pushing bills that would dial up taxes on high earners. The biggest reach is a proposal to tax the paper gains from assets above $10 million. The plan would slap Vermont’s 8.75% top income-tax rate on half of those gains. That means a...

We are once again being reminded why the once prosperous state of California is falling into a budgetary black hole and bleeding residents at an increasing rate. (Though to be fair, some of those losses are being made up for by an army of illegal migrants who use up even more resources.) The Democrats who run the state can’t seem to help themselves, and they keep going back to the well with failed ideas to increase state revenue. The latest chapter in this ongoing story comes to us from Stephen Green at PJ Media. It appears that members of the...

The fate of an obscure provision of President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax package, which will be reviewed by the Supreme Court next week, has many experts panicked over the potential to destabilize the nation’s tax system. In addition, some say the outcome could preemptively block Congress from creating a wealth tax. But the case has also exposed questions about the accuracy of the personal story a Washington State couple presented to the court in making their constitutional challenge to the tax, a one-time levy on offshore earnings. Charles and Kathleen Moore appear to have closer ties to the company central...

Less than 10 minutes into the new season of the hit Netflix reality show "Selling Sunset," two luxury real estate brokers are already complaining about a new tax on Los Angeles' wealthiest homebuyers. "This is going to be a nightmare for us," says veteran real estate agent Mary Fitzgerald. "We're just screwed." The city's so-called "mansion tax" was about to go into effect when the show was filming its latest season — and the high-end real estate industry was in a tizzy. The owner of one $26 million, 13,000-square-foot home the agents were trying to sell would have to pay...

Wealth tax proposals have been all the rage among progressive politicians of late, despite the many pitfalls of attempting to tax unrealized gains. But a case the Supreme Court just took up could render taxation of unrealized gains constitutionally untenable.Moore v. United States looks at a provision in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). One of the ways that legislators offset the foregone revenue from tax cuts was through a one-time “deemed” repatriation of earnings from U.S. citizens’ shares of foreign corporations.Put simply, the deemed repatriation provision acted as if Americans with shares in foreign corporations (above a...

In 2022 Norway’s third richest man, Kjell Inge Røkke, announced in an open letter to shareholders he was moving to Lugano, Switzerland. “My capital will continue working in Norway,” wrote the fishing magnate turned industrialist who launched his empire four decades ago with a 69-foot trawler he bought while saving money working on ships off the coast of Alaska. Røkke, who Forbes estimates has a fortune of $5.1 billion, will cost the Norwegian government an estimated 175,000,000 kroner annually (roughly $16 million) with his departure. That might not sound like a lot of money, but Røkke is not the only...

Now California wants a wealth tax. Florida, Tennessee, Texas, and many other states will gladly welcome "the rich" and everyone else who will be fleeing that state as a result.This paragraph from Zerohedge says it all about Democrat policies in that state on budgetary items: ACA 3 begins with six WHEREAS clauses including that California has long-term needs that are not being met by existing revenue sources; wealth inequality among state residents has increased dramatically; a tax on extreme wealth will restore fairness to California’s tax system and raise significant revenue to meet new and existing urgent needs; and, the...

California lawmakers are pushing legislation that would impose a new tax on the state’s wealthiest residents — even if they’ve already moved to another part of the country. Assemblyman Alex Lee, a progressive Democrat, last week introduced a bill in the California State Legislature that would impose an extra annual 1.5% tax on those with a “worldwide net worth” above $1 billion, starting as early as January 2024. As early as 2026, the threshold for being taxed would drop: those with a worldwide net worth exceeding $50 million would be hit with a 1% annual tax on wealth, while billionaires...

Left-leaning proponents of taxing the assets held by America’s billionaires have a new target: In lieu of a federal wealth tax, state lawmakers want to tax billionaires where they live, in states like California, Washington and New York. A group of legislators in statehouses across the country has coordinated to introduce bills simultaneously in seven states later this week, with the same goal of raising taxes on the rich. “The point here is to make sure we do at the state level what is not being done at the federal level,” said Gustavo Rivera (D), a New York state senator...

Our current secretary of the Treasury, Janet Yellen, is busy trying to find a way to tax wealth without calling it taxing wealth. She has eyes on taxing unrealized capital gains. What this means simply is taxing people for money they have not earned or received. That's it in a nutshell. That definition should leave even those who have never had a course in accounting or finance shaken. Not only is Janet Yellen considering this, but the Democrat party is on board as well. Democrats claim that it is needed in order to pay for their agenda. You know —...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez donned an elegant gown with the slogan "Tax the Rich" painted on the back at the Met Gala in New York, where guests selected by Vogue's Anna Wintour ponied up around $35,000 a pop for tickets. The scene was reminiscent of Tom Wolfe's "radical chic" -- though rather than being guests of the well-heeled in Park Avenue duplexes, today's revolutionaries own luxury condos and drive around in government-subsidized electric cars that most Americans could never afford. My first question, though, is: Who doesn't want to "tax the rich"? Judging from my social-media feed, there seems to be...