Californians reject billionaire tax

Referendum Californians reject billionaire tax As of: November 10, 2026 • 8:15 a.m

Voters in California voted against a one-time special levy by the approximately 250 billionaires in the US state. The super-rich had invested millions of US dollars in commercials against the rich tax.

Californians rejected Proposition 40. Only 47.2 percent of voters in the US state voted in favor of introducing a billionaire tax in the referendum. The AP news agency reports this based on vote counts.

The result of the vote had already become apparent last Wednesday, when the No camp was in the lead with 55.6 percent after 60 percent of the votes were counted.

Under the proposal, all California residents with wealth of at least $1 billion - that's about 250 people with a total wealth of around $2.3 trillion - should give a one-time five percent of that amount. Most of the money should go to the health care system in the Democratically governed state, as there is a risk of funding gaps due to the loss of grants from the Republican federal government in Washington. The money should also flow into education and food aid.

Proponents of the billionaire tax estimate that the levy could have raised around $100 billion. Researchers at Stanford University, however, came up with $30 billion. One reason for their more skeptical assessment is that some of California's super-rich have already taken steps to relocate their official residence. Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page had already bought tens of millions of dollars worth of properties in Florida - a Republican stronghold.

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The vote in California was accompanied by a fierce election campaign: opponents of the tax raised around ten times as much money as its supporters. Brin alone donated more than $100 million to an organization that campaigned against the bill. The money was used, among other things, to finance commercials against the introduction of the tax.

California Governor Gavin Newsom was also against the special levy. He warned that the state had lost tax revenue because the rich had fled.

Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg approached the matter in a completely different way: he enforced a new share structure at the Instagram group by threatening to move. In a stock split, new shares without voting rights are issued, so that Zuckerberg could have sold part of them to pay the tax without losing influence.

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But there were also other voices: The co-founder and CEO of the chip company Nvidia, Jensen Huang, said that for him it was out of the question to leave California because of the tax.

The planned tax should also address the problem that it is easy for the super-rich in the USA to avoid paying taxes. Their assets often consist of large blocks of shares - and taxes would only be due if they sell some of them. Instead, they often take out loans secured by shares and can therefore live largely tax-free.

This topic in the program: tagesschau.de | Californians reject billionaire tax in referendum | 11/10/2026 | 07:53 am