California’s authoritarian Democrats have ruined that state with their high taxes, overregulation, climate change lunacy, pro-crime policies, tolerance of homelessness, and refusal to learn from their mistakes.
The result has been a massive flight out of the craziest, bluest state in the union to places where Republicans govern with sanity and compassion for working-class Americans. The flight has included many of California’s wealthier residents.
But now, rather than change the way they govern to be more accommodating and appealing to residents so they will stay (and other Americans will consider moving in to the state), those same Democrats are planning to pass a measure that continues to punish even former residents with high taxes — if it holds up in court.
California Democrats are pushing for a new tax on the state’s wealthiest residents that includes the ability to tax them even after they’ve left the state for places like Florida or Texas—or even after they move out of the country.
State Rep. Alex Lee introduced the Wealth Tax Act as Assembly Bill 259 and Assembly Constitutional Amendment 3 in the California State Legislature last week, and on Monday, held a press conference with his Democrat colleagues calling for wealth taxes “to bring tax justice.”
As usual, Democrats use language describing just the opposite of what they are doing; there is no “justice” in taxing someone a) just because they are wealthier than others; and b) if they no longer live in the state.
Billionaires aren't paying what they owe while enjoying public investments to build their empires. My colleagues today and colleagues from 7 other states are introducing Wealth Taxes to bring tax justice#TaxTheRich pic.twitter.com/XXFOJx3D3Z
— Alex Lee 李天明 (@alex_lee) January 24, 2023
It should be noted that just a few years ago, California ran consecutive budget surpluses, but because Democrats confiscate wealth from those who have it and give it away to those who have no right to it, the state ran a massive budget deficit last year.
According to The Epoch Times, the proposed measure includes a provision that will authorize California tax collectors to grab a portion of the “worldwide net worth” of former state residents who have either moved abroad or now live somewhere else — as many have fled for red states that have far fewer regulations and a much lighter tax burden.
Currently, California’s socialist Democrats have raised the state’s corporate tax rate to the highest in the country at 8.84 percent, and the state ranks 48th on the Tax Foundation’s Business Tax Climate while it’s 49th on the group’s Individual Income Tax Rank. That has led to more moving trucks leaving California for places like Texas, Florida, and North and South Carolina than coming into the state for three years in a row, according to a recent study. And now that the tech sector is collapsing in Democrat Joe Biden’s economy, California is liable to continue shedding residents.
“California’s proposed wealth tax would impose an annual ‘worldwide net worth’ tax of 1.5 percent on net worth above $1 billion and 1 percent above $50 million,” the outlet reported.
Rob Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable, blasted the ignorant, socialist plan and described it as “the wrong solution, both now and in the future” while arguing it would encourage more wealthy residents to leave.
“A wealth tax will only further destabilize our budget system, and it will encourage even more high-wealth individuals to leave the state entirely,” Lapsley said, pointing out that for the 2020 tax year, just 13,360 taxpayers paid more than one-quarter, or 25.8 percent, of all the personal income tax collected in the state of nearly 40 million.
“Further relying on this volatile and highly mobile tax base would only increase the boom-bust cycles that define our budget,” he continued, adding that “we strongly oppose” the proposal.
Democrats don’t build, they destroy societies with confiscatory, authoritarian policies like this one.
