California said no to this $100 billion tax: the tax on billionaires inspired by Gabriel Zucman officially rejected by voters

It's official. Californian voters rejected the tax on billionaires promoted by French economist Gabriel Zucman, American media concluded Monday evening, following the counting of the postal vote, almost a week after the election. According to CNN and CBS News, "Prop 40" failed to obtain the majority of votes.

The text planned to take 5% of the net wealth of some 200 billionaires from this state, the most populous in the United States, to help finance the public health system. This text was submitted to voters last week, during the mid-term elections marked by a large Democratic victory. The text provided for a one-time payment of 5% of the net assets of the state's 200 or so billionaires.

Its promoters expected around $100 billion for the public health system on which half of Californians depend, weakened by Donald Trump's federal cuts. Popular when it was launched, the measure quickly lost ground. Several attempts to tax large fortunes have already failed in California, without ever reaching the polls.

The proposal divided even within the Democratic camp. Outgoing Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, for example, was opposed to it. Partial results showed that large cities, such as Los Angeles and San Francisco, narrowly approved the measure, while rural areas in the east voted mostly against it.

Strong opposition from billionaires The Franco-American economist, whose work inspired the measure, accused "the billionaires of Silicon Valley" of having "done everything to sabotage the measure". Opponents, including Google co-founder Sergey Brin, have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising, insisting that the tax risks being made permanent and causing an exodus of the ultra-rich. “Important changes rarely follow a straight line,” reacted Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize winner in economics, in a press release sent to AFP by the International Capital Tax Commission.

In France, the Zucman tax ignited debates in the National Assembly last month. It aims to tax the approximately 1,800 wealthiest tax households each year to the tune of at least 2% of their net assets, including taxes already paid.

Machine-translated from French