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House Passes Housing Bill, Daily Wire $2B IPO, Knicks Trash Can Lady Fired | PBD Podcast #823
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California's Billionaire Wealth Tax: 5% That's Really 10%+
At 49:23 · chapter starts 42:15
Patrick Bet-David introduces the Zero Hedge report confirming California Secretary of State Shirley Weber's announcement that the billionaire wealth tax has qualified for the November 2026 ballot. The initiative targets the state's estimated 250 billionaires with a one-time 5% levy on assets including art, stocks, and bonds, earmarked for K-12 schools, Medi-Cal, and CalFresh. Tom Ellsworth draws an analogy to California's 1984 lottery, pointing out that 'for the children' is always the political packaging used to sell new tax mechanisms. [1] — Patrick Bet-David "Billionaires don't sit on cash — Tom Ellsworth says a typical billionaire holds under $50M liquid on a $1B net worth. To pay the 5% wealth …" 41:43 The panel then works through the economic math in detail: Tom Ellsworth says a typical billionaire holds less than $50 million in cash, so a $1B net worth billionaire facing a $50M tax bill must liquidate roughly $100M in assets. After paying 16% California capital gains and 23% federal capital gains taxes on those sales, the effective cost approaches 10% or more of their wealth. [2] — Patrick Bet-David "It's worse than a 5% tax. It's a 10% tax." 49:42 Jeff Snyder frames the broader danger: this is really about shifting the Overton window to make it socially acceptable to demonize the successful — and once it passes in California, similar measures will spread to other states, starting higher and then 'creeping down' to ever-lower wealth levels.
A billionaire with $1B in assets paying 5% wealth tax would need to sell ~$100M of assets, triggering capital gains, making the effective hit closer to 10% or more.
