One of the most interesting choices on the midterm ballots this year is in California, where voters will be asked to approve or reject a novel tax on billionaires’ wealth. Although the devil may be in the details, the structure is simple to explain: a one-time, 5 percent levy on fortunes over $1 billion, spread across five years — equaling 1 percent of billionaires’ wealth paid to the state of California per year. If enacted, proponents say it could chart the way for the United States to start narrowing yawning inequality, especially the snowballing fortunes of the top sliver of ultrawealthy tech tycoons; detractors say it will backfire, driving billionaires out of the state, taking tens of thousands of high-paying jobs with them and leaving California poorer than if such an attempt had never been made in the first place. The French economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, who have both lived in California and taught at the University of California, Berkeley, are protagonists in this debate. Their research quantifies the growth in wealth of California’s billionaires and the course of wealth inequality in American history more broadly, and they helped design the 2026 Billionaire Tax Act. In a guest essay for Times Opinion, Saez and Zucman present new research into the fortunes of California’s billionaires and make a strong case for voters to embrace the wealth tax in November. “Some of the very wealthiest people in America are among the least taxed,” they write. “This arrangement violates basic principles of fairness, deprives the government of revenue it needs for public services and fuels wealth concentration.” Sergey Brin, a founder of Google and one of the two wealthiest men in the state, has funded the campaign opposing the measure and paid for signature collection for opposing ballot initiatives that would undercut the wealth tax. In November, Californians will have a clean choice: tax billionaire wealth for the first time as a one-time experiment, or pass a law that forbids all wealth taxation in the state going forward. Whichever path voters choose, America should pay close attention.
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