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Time to Make Billionaire Pay Their Fair Share of Taxes
Why We Are Voting YES on Proposition 40 and Urge You to Join Us
by LARRY GROSS, Executive Director, Coalition for Economic Survival
| | Proposition 40 on the November state ballot proposes a one-time 5% tax on billionaire wealth to generate tens of billions in temporary funds to counteract the loss of federal funding and other risks to health, nutrition, and education services, mainly due to H.R. 1 — the 2025 budget reconciliation law called the “One Big Ugly Bill Act.” Prop. 40 could raise tens of billions in revenue in the short-term to preserve critical services. | |
H.R. 1, which Trump signed on July 4, 2025, will severely harm Californians by reducing funding for vital health care and food aid programs, while giving huge tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations. The spending cuts will hit low-income families, immigrants, and communities of color hardest, driving more people into poverty and increasing racial and economic disparities throughout the state.
Over the next five years, the federal budget reduces California healthcare funding by about $100 billion to finance tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy. The federal cuts to Medi-Cal alone are expected to cost the state tens of billions of dollars in lost funding and could lead to around 1.3 million Californians losing health care access by 2029-30.
Prop. 40 includes specific exemptions from the net worth calculation, including:
· Real property holdings are limited by constitutional tax restrictions because of Proposition 13, which California voters approved in 1978.
· Personal tangible assets, including vehicles, jewelry, appliances, or business equipment, kept outside California;
· Specific pensions, retirement accounts, and arrangements for deferred compensation.
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Billionaire Dollars Funding Campaign Against Prop. 40
Voters are being inundated with deceptive ads attacking Prop. 40. And who is footing the bill for these false ads? Naturally, the billionaires who want to avoid paying their fair share.
Just like landlords who spent over $100 million deceiving and confusing voters to defeat the rent control ballot measures, these billionaires are using the same tactics but with ten times the funds.
Don’t Be Tricked – Vote Yes on Prop. 40, A Real Treat
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To offset the cuts, Prop. 40 would generate tens of billions in revenue to avoid losses in health coverage for Californians and stabilize the state’s healthcare system, as well as help prevent hospital and ER closures and help finance California public K-14 education and SNAP food assistance.
Prop 40 offers a dollar-for-dollar safeguard against the $100 billion in federal healthcare cuts that could permanently shut down local hospitals and emergency rooms unless billionaires pay their fair share.
Prop. 40 proposes a one-off tax targeting the worldwide assets of billionaires. Under the measure, a billionaire liable for the tax may be an individual, a married couple, or a trust with a net worth — as defined by the measure — exceeding $1 billion. California is home to approximately 250 billionaires, whose combined wealth exceeds $2 trillion.
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Example of One Billionaire’s
Tax Increase Under Prop. 40
Mark Zuckerberg, who co-founded Facebook, has an estimated net worth of about $200 billion. Assuming his wealth subject to Prop. 40 is approximately $200 billion on December 31, 2026, the date net worth is assessed for the measure, he would be liable for around $10 billion in tax. He could pay in five annual installments of $2 billion. His remaining fortune of about $190 billion would still exceed the total economies of numerous countries, approximately equal to Morocco's Gross Domestic Product.
Forbes data shows that Zuckerberg’s net worth surged 175% between 2023 and 2024, increasing from $64.4 billion to $177 billion.
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Billionaires Who Flee
Won’t Be Able to Hide
Billionaires residing in California as of January 1, 2026, are subject to the tax, irrespective of the number of offices they open or mansions they acquire in other states.
Thus, the opponent’s argument that billionaires will move out of the state, likely untrue, would not be an option from being taxed.
The overwhelming majority of billionaires in the state appear to have stayed, and the myth of billionaires fleeing California has collapsed.
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Billionaire Taxes Work in Other States
Findings from Massachusetts and Washington indicate that taxing the super-rich brings in considerable revenue without pushing wealth away. After the taxes were introduced, the number of extremely rich residents and their combined wealth continued to rise in both states.
As an example, when Massachusetts residents approved a 4% surtax on earnings over $1 million in 2022, opponents predicted that millionaires would exit the state. A recent report revealed that between 2022 and 2024, the number of residents with a net worth exceeding $1 million increased by 38.6%.
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Prop 41 and Prop 42 – Billionaires Attempt to Fool Voters
Proposition 41, known as the Transparency Act, would mandate pre-election audits for ballot initiatives proposing special taxes after proponents have gathered 25 percent of the necessary signatures.
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Furthermore, Proposition 41 mandates that any state law or ballot initiative imposing a new special tax after January 1, 2026, must be audited by the state every four years to assess program effectiveness and find cost-saving opportunities. Crucially, it would bar the state from enforcing any tax exempted or excluded from the state spending limit if put into effect on or after January 1, 2026.
Proposition 42, known as the Retirement and Personal Savings Protection Act, aims to amend the California Constitution to ban new taxes on retirement holdings, individually owned assets, and other personal savings after January 1, 2026. This is an effort to deceive voters into believing retirement funds would be taxed. That is absolutely not the case.
It would also ban retroactive taxes that hold individuals liable for conduct, activities, or status existing before the tax's effective date. The prohibition on retroactivity specifically targets the Act's residency determination date of January 1, 2026.
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Prop. 40 Has Broad-Based Support
A wide-ranging coalition of groups representing millions of Californians supports Prop 40. Among them are the California Democratic Party, Los Angeles County Democratic Party, California Federation of Labor Unions, California Nurses Association, Service Employees International Union – United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW), United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), US Senators Bernie Sanders & Chris Murphy, US Congressmembers Judy Chu & Ro Khanna, and numerous others.
Join us in voting Yes on Prop. 40 to defend healthcare and make billionaires pay their fair share and vote No on Prop. 41 and Prop.42.
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Coalition for Economic Survival
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