No 'Zucman tax' in California: voters in the richest U.S. state are set to massively reject the proposed billionaire tax

Californians are sparing Silicon Valley billionaires. Called to go to the polls on Tuesday, November 3, voters in the richest state in the United States rejected a proposal aimed at taxing the wealthiest more. The "no" to "Proposition 40" which provided for the establishment of an exceptional tax on the wealthiest, in fact won by 56.41%.

In addition, “Proposition 42”, which on the contrary included the ban on a new tax in the Californian Constitution, was approved by 54.54%. Submitted to a vote during the midterms, the California 2026 Billionaire Tax Act proposed the creation of an exceptional tax of 5% on the wealth of billionaires. Concretely, the approximately 200 residents of California whose fortune exceeds a billion dollars could be forced to pay back to the State the equivalent of 5% of their assets.

And not just their income: their shares, their stakes in companies or even their financial investments would be affected. Billionaires are up against “Proposition 40” This proposal from a powerful health workers union is different from the “Zucman tax” which consists of imposing each year a minimum levy of 2% on the assets of taxpayers whose fortune exceeds 100 million euros. Because the Californian tax was intended to be punctual.

But it still sparked controversy in the United States. The American left has particularly fractured on this subject. Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom was himself against it.

Its opponents fear that this will scare Silicon Valley and cause an exodus of the ultra-rich, which would have strained tax revenues. A clause was nevertheless added to the text to target people who resided in California on January 1, 2026, even if they have since left the state. Several American billionaires have expressed their disagreement in recent months.

This is particularly the case of Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal. All three went to Florida. Or even Travis Kalanick, the co-founder of Uber, who left for Texas.

Some even spent crazy amounts of money to support the campaign against the project. Sergey Brin, for example, would have paid 100 million dollars.

Machine-translated from French