Emmanuel Saez (Berkeley-Economics) and Gabriel Zucman (Paris School of Economics) have published a guest essay in the New York Times: “The Case for California’s Billionaire Wealth Tax.” From the article:
On taxes and much else, California has often led the country. In 1978 the state’s voters approved Proposition 13, which strongly limited tax increases. Prop 13 was the opening salvo in Ronald Reagan’s antitax revolution, which swept the United States two years later.
This year California’s voters could spearhead a shift in the opposite direction. A large labor union representing health care workers and advised by academic experts — including the two of us — got the 2026 Billionaire Tax Act on this November’s ballot. The proposed tax would be a one-time levy of 5 percent on billionaire wealth, spread over five years. If the measure passes, it would be the first tax targeted at the combined personal and business wealth of billionaires enacted anywhere in the world.
California is an ideal place to test this idea. The state needs money to fill a budget hole that the Trump administration created when it cut, among other things, Medicaid, a state-federal partnership that provides health coverage to low-income people. Without more state tax revenue to fill the loss in federal funding, the fraction of uninsured Californians will increase substantially, reversing part of the progress made since Obamacare.
More TaxProf Blog coverage on California’s billionaire wealth tax:
- Boll, Saez, and Zucman on California Billionaires (May 26, 2026)
- Some Actual Facts on California’s Billionaire Tax (May 4, 2026)
- The Push to Get California Billionaire Tax on the Ballot (March 3, 2026)
- California’s Wealth Tax and Billionaire Psychology (February 3, 2026)
- Solana: The Great California Wealth Exodus (January 27, 2026)
- Galle et al.: Expert Report on Valuation of Controlling Shares of Publicly Traded Companies Under the California Billionaire Tax Act (January 21, 2026)
- NYT: Newsom Vows to Stop Proposed Billionaire Tax in California (January 14, 2026)
- Galle, Gamage & Shanske: Correcting the Record: Responding to Some Legal Arguments About the 2026 Billionaire Tax Act (January 9, 2026)
- Washington Post: California Will Miss Billionaires When They’re Gone (January 2, 2026)
- WSJ: Threat of California Billionaire Tax Draws Criticism from Ultrawealthy (January 2, 2026)
- Tax Notes and Shanske on California’s Proposed Billionaire’s Tax (November 18, 2025)
- WSJ: The California Campaign to Introduce a First-of-Its-Kind Billionaire’s Tax (November 14, 2025)
