A Google founder has more than doubled his financial contribution to the fight against a proposed wealth tax in California. New filings with the state show that former Alphabet president Sergey Brin donated $25m to a Super Pac dedicated to blocking the tax on top of $20m he had already given.
Brin is not alone among Google’s top brass in upping his financial stake in the campaign against the ballot proposal. The company’s former CEO Eric Schmidt donated $1.02m, adding to a previous $2m contribution.
The tech titans are battling the California Billionaire Tax act, often referred to simply as the billionaire tax. It’s a proposed ballot measure that would require any California resident worth more than $1bn to pay a one-off, 5% tax on their assets to help cover education, food assistance and healthcare programs in the state. It’s sponsored by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, and is still in the signature-gathering phase.
If the measure reaches the ballot and gains voters’ approval, the tax would apply to billionaires based on their residency as of 1 January 2026. For Brin, worth about $247bn, the bill would likely be upwards of $12bn. That stipulation appears to have caused him and several other billionaires to leave California at the end of last year. Brin relocated to a $42m estate on the north-eastern shore of Lake Tahoe in Nevada, and his Pac donations show Reno as his address. Schmidt’s filings show his address as West Hollywood.
This tax is stupid IMO, it shouldn’t be one time, but 1% every year.
I’ll take the 5% though, better than nothing.I have heard a few people talk sanely about the tax and the more I hear the more ridiculous this one time “fee” sounds.
I heard a far better proposal about closing the tax loopholes they use. Wealthy folks are borrowing tax free against unrealized capital gains. They pay little to no tax on it.
It’s not sexy but it’s a way better solution because not only does it tax the people who need to be taxed, it also begins to help people push back against capital being more powerful than labour.
It’s also far less costly to implement. You borrow against unrealized capital gains to live as if it were income - boom income tax.
Dude is worth a quarter of a trillion
He can afford to spend 12.5bn on stopping this before he’s losing money
Frankly I’d be campaigning on this if I was an advocating politician of the bill. “He is willing to burn this money rather than pay a fair share into public finances to benefit everyone”
He has already left the state to avoid the tax according to the article. So he’ll pay nothing even if it passes. I suspect he’s funding the measure simply because he doesn’t want this to start some sort of nationwide precedent.
The fact that he can afford to do that is the best possible case in favor of that tax.
Pay $45m. Trying to not be taxed…
45 milly to not pay 12 billy seems reasonable.
tbf, it’s staple of the grifter kickback scheme. money is bullshit, in the higher circles you basically just move your $ pile around inbetween a group of trusted like-minded individuals to minimize tax burden.
If the tax passes he’d owe $12b. Subtract $45m from $12b and you’d still have $11,955 million remaining, which rounds to $12b.
Imagine how ridiculous the taxes have to be for $45M to be preferable
Edit: Was more of a comment on the inconceivable amount of money these fucks must be getting paid for 45 mil to be a drop in the bucket. Please don’t mistake my disgust for their tax amount as a justification for their actions. Imagine how much good that money could do. Instead it sits in the pockets of the top 0.01% while the only money they pay is to other corrupt fucks who keep them from paying more. The whole idea would be laughable for its logic if it wasn’t so damn cruel in action.
You think these people don’t have enough money?
Citizens United ruined America.
1,000,000%.
Is this a proposal for how much billionaires should be taxed? Because if so, I’m on board.
Capitalism destroyed america. Citizens United was an inevitable product of an economy designed to give rich people more power over time and poor people less.
It always turns back into feudalism.
smells like somebody doesn’t want to pay his fair share
The fact that he’s both willing and able to do this, is the one single biggest argument in favour of abolishing billionaires.
Most billionaires are so anti-tax they would spend their entire fortune to keep from paying taxes.
Because it’s not about the money as much as it is the principle of having to follow the same rules as everyone else.
My aunt and uncle bought a Tesla a few years back. Partially for the electric vehicle; partially for the fact that in California up until last summer, if you were driving an EV, you could use the carpool lane even if you were by yourself.
I remember my cousin just complaining complaining complaining that she’d have to use the other lanes like “everyone else” when she went to school, and that she’d have to wake up twenty minutes earlier to compensate for the traffic.
Now that’s class solidarity!
Imagine being so rich that, not only could you drop $45M without even thinking about it, and not only could you just move to a new $42M house without thinking about it, but you would still be worth $235 BILLION after losing 12 billion dollars… and being angry!
The amount of money here is absurd. $45m is 0.02% of his net worth.
Say you’re a successful doctor and have a net worth of $1m. If you wanted to spend 0.02% of your net worth on something it would be $200.
Financial obesity is an existential threat to any society that tolerates it, and needs to cease being celebrated, rewarded, and positioned as an aspirational goal.
Corporations are the only ‘persons’ which should be subjected to capital punishment, but billionaires should be euthanised through taxation.
Clearly has the money. If he doesn’t like it maybe he should move to texas like the other greedy chuds who hate the state they live in.
I hope that if the bill passes there’s also an exit tax. So, if you leave California to try to avoid the billionaire tax, you still need to pay if you were in California when the bill passed. Show up in California again and you can be arrested for not paying.
Also want to point out that Anne Wojcicki is founder of 23andMe.
Billionaires should not be allowed to exist, period!!
Hence the taxes
