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A Google founder has more than doubled his financial contribution to the fight against a proposed wealth tax in California. New filings with the state show that former Alphabet president Sergey Brin donated $25m to a Super Pac dedicated to blocking the tax on top of $20m he had already given.
Brin is not alone among Google’s top brass in upping his financial stake in the campaign against the ballot proposal. The company’s former CEO Eric Schmidt donated $1.02m, adding to a previous $2m contribution.
The tech titans are battling the California Billionaire Tax act, often referred to simply as the billionaire tax. It’s a proposed ballot measure that would require any California resident worth more than $1bn to pay a one-off, 5% tax on their assets to help cover education, food assistance and healthcare programs in the state. It’s sponsored by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, and is still in the signature-gathering phase.
If the measure reaches the ballot and gains voters’ approval, the tax would apply to billionaires based on their residency as of 1 January 2026. For Brin, worth about $247bn, the bill would likely be upwards of $12bn. That stipulation appears to have caused him and several other billionaires to leave California at the end of last year. Brin relocated to a $42m estate on the north-eastern shore of Lake Tahoe in Nevada, and his Pac donations show Reno as his address. Schmidt’s filings show his address as West Hollywood.
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A jackass with more money than they can enjoy in life, spending it on making the lives of others more miserable. Classy.
Wexner straight up said he’s Epstein’s boy…fuckin get some rope and find a free for this baby eater.
All these donations prove they can afford to fucking pay more tax and should shut the fuck up.
smells like somebody doesn’t want to pay his fair share
And his fair share must be more than $45M or he’d just pay the fucking tax…
His spending 45 million is the equivalent of someone with a net worth of 500,000 spending 75 dollars. It’s nothing to him.
Also want to point out that Anne Wojcicki is founder of 23andMe.
Pay $45m. Trying to not be taxed…
If the tax passes he’d owe $12b. Subtract $45m from $12b and you’d still have $11,955 million remaining, which rounds to $12b.
45 milly to not pay 12 billy seems reasonable.
That’s nothing to them, it’s about the money in the long run.
tbf, it’s staple of the grifter kickback scheme. money is bullshit, in the higher circles you basically just move your $ pile around inbetween a group of trusted like-minded individuals to minimize tax burden.
Imagine how ridiculous the taxes have to be for $45M to be preferable
Edit: Was more of a comment on the inconceivable amount of money these fucks must be getting paid for 45 mil to be a drop in the bucket. Please don’t mistake my disgust for their tax amount as a justification for their actions. Imagine how much good that money could do. Instead it sits in the pockets of the top 0.01% while the only money they pay is to other corrupt fucks who keep them from paying more. The whole idea would be laughable for its logic if it wasn’t so damn cruel in action.
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ridiculousproportionateWhen you have an unfathomable amount of money, your taxes look pretty wild whatever they are.
Ridiculous? I consider it my civic duty to pay tax. I’m happy paying tax. I just with that those with the broadest shoulders would pay the same % as I do.
Does anybody need to be worth $247B? Is a fucking sickness is what it is. I literally can’t fathom it. I’m 42 give me £500k right now and I quit work and just go enjoy what’s left of my life.
You think these people don’t have enough money?
they should live in texas or florida then.
Sad thing is that 45M is probably just chump change to him
These people own the government. You can’t beat them with politics. They’re not going to be brought to heel until they are made to be actively afraid of the working class.
This tax is stupid IMO, it shouldn’t be one time, but 1% every year.
I’ll take the 5% though, better than nothing.Once upon a time this guy would have paid 94% in federal taxes. The math would have literally worked against him … he could pay workers more and give them benefits to lose his money or just lost the money in taxes.
This style tax scale is what got one guy elected FOUR TIMES as President of the US.Yup, the first so much of his earnings would have been lower rates, after the amount surpasses thresholds, the rate increases on that part, reaching 90 some percent on obscene amounts.
They don’t take wages now though, they get like stock options, then borrow against their stock holdings, borrowing more to pay off the old, never realizing a gain to pay taxes. As per Propublica’s reporting.
it’s almost like their should be capital interest tax and loan resurgence limits, that require a federal application and limits on how it can be used (like home and auto loans are)
It is an easy fix yes, borrow against value to get money, get taxed on it, at least sometimes. Other fixes are needed. Thiel packed paypal shares into an IRA and walked away with billions tax free I guess.
We should allow individuals to tax themselves like a corporation too, subtract all of our expenses from our earnings and pay taxes on the remainder, then find taxes from those that can afford them, like the rich.
Yea, the tax free loan loophole needs to be closed as well. So do the cancerous growth causing tax exemptions that make them spend every dime purchasing other companies.
I am unfamiliar with this one, at least in the abstract, I know they can write off losses, depreciation, but for acquisitions too?
That is horrible tax policy. We are being strangled by price fixing from every angle already.
Yes, by the tax code buying another company is an investment. Sometimes they even get tax credits for doing it.
Once upon a time this guy would have paid 94% in federal taxes
Federal income taxes. It’s an important distinction between wealth taxes and income taxes. The problem with billionaires isn’t what they’re willing to admit to in income, it’s what they’re able to do with their vast wealth.
newsom doesnt want to upset the hands that feed the DNC, in california or in general, its performative for the elections.
I have heard a few people talk sanely about the tax and the more I hear the more ridiculous this one time “fee” sounds.
I heard a far better proposal about closing the tax loopholes they use. Wealthy folks are borrowing tax free against unrealized capital gains. They pay little to no tax on it.
It’s not sexy but it’s a way better solution because not only does it tax the people who need to be taxed, it also begins to help people push back against capital being more powerful than labour.
It’s also far less costly to implement. You borrow against unrealized capital gains to live as if it were income - boom income tax.
Better once than not at all. It doesn’t preclude better solutions in the future.
I don’t disagree with you on principle - but I worry what with attention and nuance being nonexistent these days we end up with “we tried it once and it didn’t work” - and never get to a better solution.
I recently heard a possible California governor candidate talk good sense on better ways to tax the wealthy and he made a very reasoned argument against this tax - it changed my mind. Note: am not American.
That’s probably the only real valid reason to go against it.
Not because it is unfair. But because there’s no teeth to it by making it non-recurring.
“Don’t be evil”
Hmm, I wonder if too much money ruins people’s brains, just like doing too much drugs? Or if they are born cunts and liars and then when they become billionaires they stop hiding that.
Dude is worth a quarter of a trillion
He can afford to spend 12.5bn on stopping this before he’s losing money
Frankly I’d be campaigning on this if I was an advocating politician of the bill. “He is willing to burn this money rather than pay a fair share into public finances to benefit everyone”
“The $45m he spent to fight this would’ve allowed us to renovate this school. The $12b he’d owe would let us renovate 100 schools. Or get X thousand of the homeless off the streets. Or fixed 10 million potholes.”
Make his name responsible for those things not happening.
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Define corporate profits.
Corporations have incredible amounts of ways to avoid saying they made any money at all, while keeping all the money as if they were profits but technically not.
Just look at Hollywood accounting for an extreme example.
Company A is spun up, “rents” everything from it’s parent, Company B, to make a movie. Movie releases and all the “profit” is marked as loss because Company A still owes Company B an insane amount.
it’s almost like corporations should be required to report all assets every year along with Thier taxable expenditures…
Yeah I just noticed I had replied to the wrong comment
Corporations don’t really pay taxes anymore. In the 50s 90% of taxes came from corporattions and businesses, now 90% is from individuals. They usually pay nothing, and even when they do pay something, they can reach back and unpay it with losses, for 3 years, or reach forward like 10 years to offset losses against tax.
To say nothing of all the tax breaks. They pay next to nothing, often nothing. Sometimes they pay negative taxes.
See my edit since it seems everyone missed what I was going for.
Edit: also, turns out I replied to the wrong comment. My bad
He has already left the state to avoid the tax according to the article. So he’ll pay nothing even if it passes. I suspect he’s funding the measure simply because he doesn’t want this to start some sort of nationwide precedent.
The fact that he can afford to do that is the best possible case in favor of that tax.
They’d rather pay to manipulate the tax code than pay taxes.
If they could pay an accountant $50k to avoid $20k in taxes that’s a win for them
So would I, but I’d like to pay to make it simpler and route more of it to education / universal healthcare.
The fact that he’s both willing and able to do this, is the one single biggest argument in favour of abolishing billionaires.
