Take Larry Page, who about 3% of Google but controls roughly 30% of its voting power through dual-class stock. Under this proposal, he’d owe taxes on that 30%. For a company valued in the hundreds of billions, that’s a lot more than a rounding error. The Post reports that one SpaceX alumni founder building grid technology would face a tax bill at the Series B stage of the company that would wipe out his entire holdings.
But that’s pretty small consolation. For startups that aren’t publicly traded, calculating valuations is “inherently difficult,” tax expert Jared Walczak told the Post. “These are not clear cut—you could come to a very different conclusion not because of dishonesty.” And if the state disagrees with your appraisal, it’s not just the company on the hook; the state can also penalize the person who calculated the valuation. Even with alternative appraisals, founders would still face enormous tax bills on control they hold but wealth they haven’t realized.
Now, if you’ve been under a rock: California’s health care union is pushing a ballot initiative for a one-time 5% tax on anyone worth over $1 billion. The union argues it’s necessary to offset the deep cuts to health care that President Trump signed into law last year, including slashes to Medicaid and ACA subsidies. As originally envisioned, they expect to raise about $100 billion from roughly 200 individuals and the tax would apply retroactively to anyone living in California as of January 1, 2026.
For now, the union isn’t backing down. “We’re simply trying to keep emergency rooms open and save patient lives,” said executive committee member Debru Carthan to the Journal last weekend. “The few who left have shown the world just how outrageously greedy they truly are.”
The proposal needs 875,000 signatures to make November’s ballot, where it would need a simple majority to pass.
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