California voters could be asked in November 2026 to approve a radical, union-backed measure that would slap a one-time 5 percent “excise” on the net worth of residents worth $1 billion or more — a blunt tool of wealth redistribution dressed up as fiscal relief. The initiative was filed in late 2025 and is now collecting signatures to make the ballot, promising to reach deep into private holdings that ordinary Californians build through businesses and investment. This is not small change; it’s a targeted grab at the state’s most successful citizens under the pretext of fixing budget shortfalls.
The ballot language would value a taxpayer’s worldwide assets as of December 31, 2026, and could be applied retroactively to residency as of January 1, 2026, with payments due as soon as 2027 and the option to stretch payments out at punitive additional charges. The initiative’s broad definition of “net worth” sweeps in stock, private business interests, intellectual property, and collectibles while carving out narrow exemptions for some real estate and retirement accounts. The legal mechanics of valuing illiquid private companies and art will invite accounting battles, invasive audits, and months of litigation — exactly the kind of instability that chases capital away.
Forbes has already run the arithmetic on who would feel the bite: household names, celebrities, and founders who helped build California are on the hook for scores of millions each if the tax passes. Using current estimates, Kim Kardashian — whose stake in SKIMS and other holdings has put her near the billionaire line — would face an estimated bill on the order of tens of millions of dollars under a 5 percent levy. This is what happens when political theater meets partisan envy: hard-earned private wealth is recast as a public piggy bank.
The backlash has been fierce and immediate, not just from conservative donors but from legal teams and business leaders who warn that the measure will spur an exodus of people, jobs, and capital from California. High-profile letters from celebrity lawyers and asset relocations by tech founders are already on public record, and even Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom has blasted the proposal as economically dangerous and pledged to fight it. If politicians are serious about keeping jobs and families here, they should be pushing growth, not punishing success for short-term political gain.
Proponents say the money would be earmarked almost entirely for healthcare programs and targeted aid, but the promise of dedicated spending does not erase the real economic risks: diminished investment, fewer startups, and lowered state tax receipts over time as people and companies flee higher costs and legal uncertainty. The Legislative Analyst and multiple reporting outlets have warned that such a dramatic step could shrink California’s tax base, making the state poorer in the long run despite the headline dollar figure. California’s working families, small businesses, and service workers — the very people the measure claims to help — will suffer when employers and innovators take their talents elsewhere.
Hardworking Americans should see this proposal for what it is: a punitive campaign against success that will do more harm than good. Voters should demand clear, sober accounting of consequences, insist on protecting entrepreneurship, and oppose measures that turn the state into a hostile environment for capital and jobs. If Californians care about opportunity and prosperity, they will reject this wealth grab at the ballot box next November.
