California’s audacious plan to tax its billionaires

Attendees wear "Billionaire Tax Now" shirts during a campaign kickoff event for the California Billionaire Tax Act on February 18, 2026, in Los Angeles, California. | Tim Rue/Bloomberg via Getty Images If there is one thing Democratic politicians can agree on right now it’s this: Rich people should pay more in taxes.

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani has made it a centerpiece of his agenda .

Texas Senate candidate James Talarico is bringing it up on the stump .

And Georgia Sen.

Jon Ossoff’s riff on the “Epstein class” of rich guys staffing the Trump administration is one of his signature applause lines .

But only in California is a billionaire tax actually on the ballot.

This November, voters in the Golden State will decide whether to levy a first-of-its-kind, one-time tax on the roughly 250 billionaires who live in the state , equal to 5 percent of their total assets.

Many of the state’s billionaires are furious — and a few have already moved away.

The tax is supported by labor unions and some populist lawmakers like Sen.

Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep.

Ro Khanna (D-CA), but it’s less popular with moderate Democrats.

Some experts, like Cornell University sociology professor Cristobal Young, are leery too.

“It’s a one-time tax, but this is not a one-time problem,” Young, who also wrote the 2017 book The Myth of Millionaire Tax Flight: How Place Still Matters for the Rich , told Today, Explained co-host Sean Rameswaram.

“So why are we talking about a one-time sort of Band-Aid over this?” Sean spoke with Young about what Young’s research shows about whether the wealthy move away from higher taxes, why this tax proposal may be different, and the right way to tax the very rich.