this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2026
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Proposition 40, which will be on the ballot in November, would impose a one-time, 5% tax on California’s 200 billionaires,

These fucks will do anything to avoid paying taxes...

with 90% of the revenue from the proposed measure going toward the state’s health care program and 10% going toward education, food assistance, and administration. Brin, with a net worth of nearly $260 billion, could owe about $13 billion as a result of the tax.

Can't be contributing to "socialism" I guess? Get some of that $260 billion liquid and pay up, dickhead.

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[–] TeaWithDani@lemmy.world 126 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

It's just 5% of his wealth. Most people give anything from 20% to 50% of their annual income to taxes and will pay income taxes on all their retirement savings when they pull it.

[–] Dojan@pawb.social 40 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I’d gladly pay 5% of my total wealth once in lieu of taxes. It’d amount to about $50. Granted all of society would grind to a fucking half if us workers weren’t paying taxes because the other leeches fucking aren’t.

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[–] deegeese@sopuli.xyz 100 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Another rich tax cheat parasite like Zuckerberg and Musk.

[–] Fishnoodle@lemmy.world 16 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (5 children)

We need to make readily available MANPAD blueprints using easily obtained materials.

There is no private jet that shouldn't be shot out of the sky. You don't need billions to make rich people live in fear. You just need labor.

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[–] takeda@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 3 weeks ago

That have so much wealth that they wouldn't even notice and it would help with finding that were cut by Big Billionaire Bill. Including social net.

But yeah, fuck us, fuck our children and grandchildren.

If your are in California, please vote yes on prop 40, and vote NO on prop 41 and 42 (Trojan horses placed by Sergey that would block prop 40 even if it passes)

[–] DickHertz@lemmy.world 90 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Bring back pre-Reagan tax rates on the rich.

[–] FrChazzz@lemmus.org 41 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

Those 1950s glory days that Republicans keep harkening back to involved Ike, a Republican president, taxing the [very] wealthy ~~like 52% (fake viral posts say 90%).~~ at a rate of around 90%.

EDIT: Corrected based off of comments. The 52% rates seem to be more common among the "wealthy" at the time, but in comparison to billionaires today, the 90% rate would be more accurate. The "fake viral posts" is in reference to memes that make it sound like every person who counted as "wealthy" were taxed at 90%. I realize I could have written all of that more clearly.

[–] hraegsvelmir@ani.social 24 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (4 children)

Is it fake viral posts, or just people not understanding how marginal tax rates work or how they differ from your effective tax rate again? The highest tax rate did cross over 90% at the tail end of WWII, but very few people actually had to pay taxes at that rate, and even then, their effective tax rate would have been much lower.

Edit: Just to illustrate, this site has historical tax rates for the period in question. For the sake of simplifying then math, I'm doing this assuming you only paid 3% income tax on income up to $100,000/year, and 94% on earnings above that with the surtax. Source for the income numbers is straight out of my ass, but it doesn't really matter, as it's only to illustrate the point. So, say that year, you managed to make $110,000. You would pay 3% on your first $100,000 in taxable income, and 94% on the remaining $10,000 you earned above that, making your effective rate 11.27% across your whole income, with a tax liability of $12,400. You can have both lower effective tax rates and higher marginal tax rates for your highest earners without either one negating the truth of the other.

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[–] Ludicrous0251@piefed.zip 13 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-prior/i1040--1955.pdf

1955 top income tax bracket is 91% for single income over $200k ($2.5M today). IDK what's fake about that, except if you don't understand the concept of bracketing taxes.

[–] TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today 3 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

The problem is that no one actually paid that, during that same time period tax avoidance was stupidly easy. The average tax rate for the highest earners (over 200k) rarely paid over 45%. Still higher than the average of today, but nowhere near what most people claim about the time.

Plus, before 1986 a lot of the really rich people who could afford to lobby politicians used to be able to create "riffle-shot provisions" basically highly personalized tax carve outs created for them by individual politicians.

The most famous individual tax carveout in American history occurred in the Revenue Act of 1951. Louis B. Mayer, the mega-wealthy head of Hollywood studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), wanted to retire and cash out his massive share of the studio's future profits. Under normal rules, this lump sum would be taxed as personal income at a whopping 91% rate. Mayer hired a powerful Washington lobbyist who worked with standard-setting politicians to write a highly specific amendment. The law stated that a taxpayer could treat a retirement payout as a lower-taxed capital gains distribution (taxed at only 25%), but only if: • The taxpayer had been employed by the company for more than 20 years. • They had held a contractual right to a share of future profits for at least 12 years. • They had been entitled to these rights for at least 5 years after termination of employment. • The entire payout occurred in a single block in one tax year. The criteria were so incredibly specific that Louis B. Mayer and one other MGM executive were the only two people in the United States who qualified. It saved Mayer an estimated $2 million ($23+ million in today's money).

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[–] starman2112@sh.itjust.works 68 points 3 weeks ago

God I fucking hate the rich. He's spending thousands of times my yearly pay just to avoid paying less in taxes than I do

[–] switcheroo@lemmy.world 53 points 3 weeks ago

Pay your taxes, you fucking parasite.

[–] Madison420@lemmy.world 33 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

They don't want to pay because most net worth over a couple hundred million is straight up made up. He couldn't get 13billion liquid if he tried nor could most billionaires.

[–] eurodyne@piefed.world 39 points 3 weeks ago

Exactly. Because that money does not actually exist anywhere other than in their imaginations.

Still, fuck ‘em. Just like they’ve been fucking the rest of us for decades.

Sounds like a skill issue to me.

[–] protist@retrofed.com 15 points 3 weeks ago

I wonder if he's tried not ordering avocado toast and making coffee at home

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[–] nonentity@sh.itjust.works 32 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Financial obesity is neurotoxic, an existential threat to any society that tolerates it, and needs to cease being celebrated, rewarded, and positioned as an aspirational goal.

Corporations are the only ‘persons’ which should be subjected to capital punishment, but trillionaires should be forced to transition into billionaires, and billionaires should be euthanised through taxation.

[–] FlyingCircus@lemmy.world 9 points 3 weeks ago

Even hundred millionaires and multi-tens millionaires have too much. 10 million is more than enough for you and your children to never have to work and live a comfortable life.

Even that is too high if everyone else on the planet does not have enough for basic necessities after an honest day’s work.

[–] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 27 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

And he'll still be a billionaire after that.

[–] Napster153@lemmy.world 8 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Imaginary money. By this point, their only still a hpper class because the pedestal under them hasn't collapsed.

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[–] Taleya@aussie.zone 21 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

I dont care how many billions he's gonna lose

It's literally a one-time 5% tax.

The more money they scream they're gonna lose the more I can see them afford to pay

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[–] likebudda@reddthat.com 15 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

My YTD return on my 401k is 16%. If a billionaire can't make 5% they're not much of a billionaire.

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[–] dudeface@lemmy.world 15 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

There is plenty of millionaires that want to be taxed more, billionaire wealth hoarders are psychopaths though

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Plenty will say whatever is popular, then donate to candidates who do the exact opposite.

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[–] forkDestroyer@infosec.pub 14 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I remember when I wanted to work for Google.

[–] crypt0cler1c@infosec.pub 6 points 3 weeks ago

Don't be evil

[–] aesthelete@lemmy.world 13 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

DON'T BUY THE BULLSHIT...YES ON 40.

[–] stylishboar@lemmy.world 8 points 3 weeks ago

And no on 41 and 42

[–] Suavevillain@lemmy.world 13 points 3 weeks ago

It is amazing the amount of money and effort Billionaires put into avoiding paying taxes. They aren't hated enough.

[–] ceenote@lemmy.world 12 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Unfortunately, based on the polling, it sounds like it's been working. Fuck this stupid wealth worshipping culture.

[–] Zink@programming.dev 12 points 3 weeks ago

Even 5% per year sounds pretty reasonable, honestly.

If you are a billionaire within a lifetime, then the yearly growth of your assets has been so insane that a 5% headwind should not scare you, you big crybaby.

Or if you inherited it and don't have a rapidly growth net worth... cry me a river.

[–] IamMoonPie@lemmy.world 10 points 3 weeks ago

Or… and hear me out here… we take his money away from him and leave him in a deep pit on a small uninhabited island.

[–] mechoman444@lemmy.world 9 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Okay, just a couple of details here I'd like to put out in the open.

First and foremost, I don't like billionaires. I think they should all have their wealth stripped down until they're under a billion dollars. There is no reason why billionaires should exist. That's such an incredibly large number that our human brains don't even really understand the difference between a million, 100 million, and a billion. It's visually difficult to even represent. So as far as I'm concerned, the sooner these guys can get their wealth back down to a more reasonable level, the better it is for the world in general.

Second, I really like Proposition 40. It's got some real teeth to it. The proposition doesn't simply charge taxes on revenue that a billionaire produces; it charges the tax against their net worth, which I think is absolutely fantastic because it actually targets accumulated wealth.

And that's important because billionaires don't have billions of dollars sitting around in a checking account. They may have significantly less than even a billion dollars in liquid cash. If Mr. Sergey Brin is worth $250 billion, for example, a 5% wealth tax would represent roughly $12.5 billion. He's going to have to come up with that money somehow. He can cash out assets, borrow against them, sell investments, or use other sources of liquidity. The proposition also provides for payment over a period of up to five years, although doing so comes with additional charges.

That's going to be a real interruption for billionaires, and I absolutely love that aspect of it. These people have accumulated enormous amounts of wealth while the rest of us live in an economy where ordinary people are taxed on their income, their purchases, their property, and virtually everything else they do.

For decades, America's tax system has allowed enormous fortunes to accumulate largely through appreciating assets rather than ordinary taxable income. Billionaires can therefore become dramatically wealthier without necessarily realizing that wealth as conventional income.

Good on California for proposing a tax on extreme wealth that actually has the potential to put a dent in those fortunes.

Mind you, these billionaires are ultimately trying to avoid what amounts to superficial damage to their coffers. Five percent of a $250 billion fortune is still an enormous amount of money, but it leaves $237.5 billion behind. And if their assets continue appreciating, they can potentially recover that lost wealth relatively quickly.

I'm not saying 5% is going to destroy these people. It won't. But that's exactly why I think it's a good step. It's a real tax on accumulated wealth, it actually requires the ultra-wealthy to part with a meaningful amount of money, and it demonstrates that enormous fortunes aren't necessarily untouchable simply because the wealth isn't sitting in a bank account.

[–] YragNitram1956@feddit.uk 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Rather old but still very true.“But there’s a reason. There’s a reason. There’s a reason for this, there’s a reason education SUCKS, and it’s the same reason it will never, ever, EVER be fixed. It’s never going to get any better, don’t look for it, be happy with what you’ve got. Because the owners, the owners of this country don’t want that. I’m talking about the real owners now, the BIG owners! The Wealthy… the REAL owners! The big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians. They are irrelevant. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice! You have OWNERS! They OWN YOU. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying, lobbying, to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I’ll tell you what they don’t want: They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests. That’s right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. They don’t want that! You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shitty jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it, and now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street, and you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it all from you sooner or later cause they own this fucking place! It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it! You, and I, are not in the big club. By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table has tilted folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care! Good honest hard-working people; white collar, blue collar it doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on. Good honest hard-working people continue, these are people of modest means, continue to elect these rich cock suckers who don’t give a fuck about you…. they don’t give a fuck about you… they don’t give a FUCK about you. They don’t care about you at all… at all… AT ALL. And nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. That’s what the owners count on. The fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that’s being jammed up their assholes everyday, because the owners of this country know the truth. IT’S CALLED THE AMERICAN DREAM, BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO BE ASLEEP TO BELIEVE IT.” George Carlin

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[–] Snapz@lemmy.world 9 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Do they all just have the most generally punchable faces? Or do their faces just become our idea of what is punchable?

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[–] WesternInfidels@feddit.online 9 points 3 weeks ago

Imagine another headline for the same facts:

"Google cofounder so rich he could afford to pay $13 billion in taxes"

[–] Mulligrubs@lemmy.world 9 points 3 weeks ago

It's easy to tell who government serves; The rulers are the ones paying the least taxes.

You can tell when our government "sold out"; it's when taxes were cut severely (for billionaires) way back in the 80s by Reagan and Republican party

You can tell the Democrats are in on it because they never restore those taxes (which they could do whenever they'd like).

[–] Gpennyhigh@lemmy.world 8 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

There is enough for all, the scarcity is fake and controlled by the wealthy, to maintain their place at the top, in this punching down system they invented. Read a summary of Democracy In Chains to learn more and all the propaganda they used to fool the public for decades with coordinated lies and distraction to keep their wealth and prejudice safe.

If this wins and not struck down or delayed for ages, it's supposed to bring income over five years with delayed payments so they can sell stuff lol.

[–] lIlIlIlIlIlIl@lemmy.world 8 points 3 weeks ago

Welfare Queen

[–] anon_8675309@lemmy.world 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

That 5% return on 260. He’ll never know it’s gone.

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[–] Windex007@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago
[–] ech@lemmy.ca 5 points 3 weeks ago

The math is always easy on these things - the millions paid to fight progress is always a fraction of what they expect to lose if it passes, making it simple to know why they oppose these changes instead of the nonsense propaganda they spread.

Billionaires are a symptom of the broken system.

[–] Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 4 points 3 weeks ago

I know some public schools (about 10 thousand) that could use a piece of that $13 billion, if we can manage not to waste it on the popo

[–] just_an_average_joe@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

We should convert these billionaires to islam so they pay 2.5% every year

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[–] VibeSurgeon@piefed.social 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

He already changed his tax residency before the cutoff so that he would owe $13b if the law passes is not really accurate

[–] partofthevoice@lemmy.zip 4 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

Maybe aim confused, but I thought the California billionaire tax was being applied based on historic address. So changing shouldn’t matter, no? Maybe I’m wrong.

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