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California plan for wealth tax on anyone who spends 60 days a year in the state

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Re: California plan for wealth tax on anyone who spends 60 days a year in the state

#51

> Today, California’s wealthiest 1% pay approximately 46% of total state income taxes. Adding the wealth tax to individual taxes and including those taxpayers who have abandoned California, the combination of the two proposals would have 1% of the state’s population paying about 53% of individual taxes. This is insane. That 1% will simply pick up and leave and the state will end up in a long expensive legal battle to…

So 1% pays 46% of the taxes. Do they own more or less than 46% of the total capital? Because if they own more than 46% they should be paying more taxes. It doesn't matter that they are only 1% of people. What matters is how much they own (or at least how much they earn).

“ The state’s 30 wealthiest zip codes hold 20 percent of the state’s net worth, while making up only 2 percent of state population.”[1] This study uses zip code as a proxy, but it seems to be a lot less concentrated that 1% holding 46% of the wealth. By your logic, to be fair these taxes would need to be about half as progressive.

[1]https://lao.ca.gov/reports/2019/4093/ca-geography-wealth-090...

Re: California plan for wealth tax on anyone who spends 60 days a year in the state

#52

This proposal is 0.4% tax on wealth above $30m. The Dutch equivalent is 1.6% tax on wealth above €1m. The number of Ultra High Net Worth Individuals in the Netherlands is still increasing.

The difference here is that California is a state not a country. It's much easier for a wealthy person or company to relocate to another state than it is to another country. The EU may have made it easier to relocate to another EU country than it was in the pre EU days but it's still nowhere as frictionless as moving from California to Washington, Texas, or Georgia.

OP says people are moving into Netherlands. That’s effort. Not just not moving out.

Re: California plan for wealth tax on anyone who spends 60 days a year in the state

#53

>Taxing someone who spends only 60 days in the state in any single year—and extending that tax over an ensuing decade—would be something new under the sun. Wow. That's nuts.

Yeah, this won't make it past the courts let alone the economic damage its going to cause California and loss of some of the brightest college students. Who knows what your wealth profile will be after you move out? Let alone anyone who inherits wealth, will California want a piece of that even if the property is wholly outside the state?

This is basically an act of desperation which will be wrapped under some fanciful class warfare and sadly also rife with cut outs to avoid offending specific groups. If they would clamp down on industries rife with funny money accounting, namely the music and movie industry, they might not have to go after individuals.

However people always think this will stay at certain income and wealth numbers don't fully understand who exactly is paying the bills. While it easy to point to this percentage of people paying half the money the rest is equally important.

Example, in NYC it is estimated that eighty percent of taxes is from less than twenty percent of people earning a hundred thousand per year. While skewed to the much higher end the fact is this eighty percent on income taxes is twenty two percent of the total tax revenue in the city.

Finally, all of this that is happening in California is on top of a thirteen percent marginal rate which is highest in the country being over half again as much as New York.

Re: California plan for wealth tax on anyone who spends 60 days a year in the state

#54
post #13
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rich people problems.

Until it's everyone with a net worth of a million or 100k gets the tax. It will.. probably include everyone in the end.

The slippery slope fallacy.

Re: California plan for wealth tax on anyone who spends 60 days a year in the state

#55

Great way to help further diversify the Texas economy. I want to thank the Californians who voted in these politicians.

You may regret that. The problem with Californians emigrating elsewhere is that they don’t stop voting like Californians.

Re: California plan for wealth tax on anyone who spends 60 days a year in the state

#57

>Taxing someone who spends only 60 days in the state in any single year—and extending that tax over an ensuing decade—would be something new under the sun. Wow. That's nuts.

No. Progressive.

"progressive" like most Californian things.

Re: California plan for wealth tax on anyone who spends 60 days a year in the state

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So 1% pays 46% of the taxes. Do they own more or less than 46% of the total capital? Because if they own more than 46% they should be paying more taxes. It doesn't matter that they are only 1% of people. What matters is how much they own (or at least how much they earn).

“ The state’s 30 wealthiest zip codes hold 20 percent of the state’s net worth, while making up only 2 percent of state population.”[1] This study uses zip code as a proxy, but it seems to be a lot less concentrated that 1% holding 46% of the wealth. By your logic, to be fair these taxes would need to be about half as progressive. [1] https://lao.ca.gov/reports/2019/4093/ca-geography-wealth-090...

That’s not their logic at all. You’re looking at something that has possible correlations and overlap. Not close to fully accurate. Zip codes of many people including people not in top 1% does not equal top 1%

Re: California plan for wealth tax on anyone who spends 60 days a year in the state

#59

Great way to help further diversify the Texas economy. I want to thank the Californians who voted in these politicians.

The problem most Texans see is they flea California, realize it’s different, and vote for the same stuff they had there. A lot of Texans do not want California transplants. Just like how Montana doesn’t want Texans.

Re: California plan for wealth tax on anyone who spends 60 days a year in the state

#60
post #49

I'm not sure what the problem is. When Democrat supporters demand more more more via the politicians who promise more more more, where did they think the money would come from? Believe it or not, the bottom ~50% don't have enough money to tax. The next 30-40% have some but not enough to raise enough money to help. The taxes have to be focused on the top 10% and more likely the top 1-3% to raise enough to meet these d…

Isnt the us taxing basically everyone even if they moved somewhere else years ago?

As a rough approximation, if you’re a US citizen, then You must file a US income tax return. The US taxes your worldwide income regardless of where it’s earned. BUT under most circumstances you would get a credit against what you owe the US for what you pay the country in which you earned the money and also wanted to tax you (no double taxation in theory)

It’s kind of a pain for someone living in say Kenya which doesn’t have a tax treaty with the US, but it’s not totally absurd to think you owe something to a country whose citizenship you continue to benefit from.

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