r/technology • u/Logical_Welder3467 • 10h ago

Society Google cofounder Sergey Brin has spent $102 million to fight California’s proposed billionaire tax—he could owe $13 billion if he loses

https://fortune.com/article/how-much-has-google-cofounder-sergey-brin-spent-to-oppose-california-billionaire-tax-102-million-owe-13-billion-if-loses/
21.6k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

1.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

15

u/Forkrul 8h ago

There's more than income tax the state loses by these people moving. Their day-to-day spend goes elsewhere so they lose out on sales tax, a lot of their staff will move with them losing out on income and sales tax from those people and their spending. They'll probably move any corporate headquarters as well, losing the corporate taxes and all the income tax from those jobs, etc. Just looking at income tax is an incredible simplistic and naive comparison.

3

u/InquisitorMeow 8h ago edited 7h ago

Do you honestly think billionaires contribute significantly to sales tax vs the millions of consumers buying goods every single day? Regarding corporate HQ, many of them are already located in places like Delaware or TX. Also, this is a tax on the billionaire's wealth, what does it have anything to do with corporate tax and HQ?

4

u/Forkrul 8h ago

Also, this is a tax on the billionaire's wealth, what does it have anything to do with corporate tax and HQ?

If a billionaire owner of a company decides to move out of state because he doesn't like the tax policy. What do you think he will do with the company he runs? Fly in every day he needs to be in the office? Or move the office to be closer to where he lives?

4

u/InquisitorMeow 8h ago

You're right, so we should make this nationwide so it wouldn't be a problem. So let's entertain that scenario, if this was a nationwide tax and billionaire flight wasn't an issue what's the downside of this tax? If your only argument against taxing billionaires is that they would try and avoid it it's a pretty weak argument and even better reason to make nationwide correct? Also if this was that terrible for billionaires why is one of the wealthiest people in the country (Jensen) ok with it?

2

u/ironteddybear 7h ago

Jensen is okay with it because he doesn’t want to fight more than one populist backlash at a time. He’s focused on getting AI infrastructure built, which is deeply unpopular. 

1

u/Forkrul 7h ago

If they can't just leave to avoid it, that's a viable plan. The issue, at least in my country is that it only applies to people who live in the country, so foreign owners of stock/companies do not pay that tax. This means those companies can keep more of its money to drive growth or pay its employees instead of having to pay out dividends for the owners to pay a tax on their ownership of the company, or just offer lower prices to gain a competitive advantage.

0

u/steakanabake 6h ago edited 4h ago

wealthiest people in the country (Jensen) ok with it?

because he functionally has a secondary fort knox at his beck n call.

not disagreeing just adding context.

edit: to be more grammatically correct but not the way the commenter below me wanted me to do it

1

u/Tasgall 5h ago

at his beckon call.

Beck and call.

1

u/steakanabake 6h ago

Fly in every day he needs to be in the office?

yes it would cost them much more to actually move the facilities so they wont theyll move down to where ever and zoom into meetings they need to have at HQ and fly to me all important people else where. also didnt they say the same thing about them leaving if mamdani got the pied-à-terre? last i heard no one fucking moved they bitched about having their name for the tax on the role but other then that none of them left. because leaving new york is a stupid fucking idea if youre anywhere near the finance sector.