Billionaire tax: The California dream becomes a nightmare

California is already home to some of the highest taxes in the country, and another tax increase may be on the ballot this year: the “billionaire tax.”This naked money grab is a one-time, 5%  tax on anyone’s wealth over $1 billion — and people are literally leaving over it.California is already losing about one taxpayer per minute, and this lunatic proposal is gasoline on the fire. Because it would be retroactive to January 1 of this year, the billionaire flight began in earnest before the new year, as wealthy Californians fled the state for less onerous jurisdictions.According to Chamath Palihapitiya, cohost of the “All-In” podcast and venture capitalist, so many billionaires preemptively fled California in December that they took a whopping $1 trillion of assets with them, drastically shrinking the tax base and reducing future revenues in the not-so-Golden State.Among the economic refugees is Google cofounder Larry Page who summarily left the state and took whatever assets he could with him to avoid the onerous proposed tax.This flight will be devastating for California’s bottom line.The top 1% of earners already paid about half of all state income taxes, but now there are fewer of them, which will depress state tax revenue. If California makes the boneheaded decision to go through with this tax, the hemorrhaging will only become worse, especially among the wealthiest state residents.The middle class would be the hardest hit, ironically, and not the billionaires themselves. As F.

Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, “the very rich are different from you and me.” They have ways — perfectly legal — of shielding income from taxes. Most middle-class families in California don’t have that option, and many lack the resources to make a cross-country move to Florida.They’re stuck in this “Hotel California” — they can check out anytime they like, but they can never leave.Once the state is done taking the wealth of billionaires, it wil...