US EditionDan Walters | Billionaires Bolt From Blue States Amid Tax Fears, Mirroring Rebellion in ‘Atlas Shrugged’ Novel
About 200 billionaires, mostly from California, are relocating to states like Florida and Texas to avoid a proposed 5% wealth tax that could raise $100 billion in four years.
- Wealthy entrepreneurs are fleeing California and other blue states for Florida, Nevada, and Texas in response to proposed wealth taxes and regulations targeting them.
- California's proposed 5% wealth tax would generate an estimated $100 billion over four years, a situation mirroring Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged, where accomplished individuals reject suffocating taxes.
- Starbucks founder Howard Schultz is relocating to Florida while his company moves headquarters to Tennessee; Washington's Legislature approved last week a 9.9% tax on incomes of $1 million or more.
- California Gov. Gavin Newsom opposes the wealth tax, calling it "really damaging to the state," while New York Gov. Kathy Hochul worries that taxes proposed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani could accelerate wealthy departures.
- The top 1% of California taxpayers supplies nearly 50% of income tax collections, creating significant budgetary risk if billionaires continue fleeing the state.
11 Articles
11 Articles
Dan Walters: Billionaires Bolt from Blue States Amid Tax Fears, Mirroring Rebellion in ‘Atlas Shrugged’ Novel
[Noozhawk’s note: We republish news articles and commentaries from CalMatters on state and local policy issues that affect Santa Barbara County readers.] Ayn Rand was a Russian-born writer who immigrated to the United States in 1926, worked as a screenwriter and playwright, and wrote several novels expressing an individualistic philosophy she called “objectivism.” Rand’s novels and outspoken ideology were subjects of academic and media debate fr…
Billionaires bolt from blue states amid tax fears, mirroring rebellion in 'Atlas Shrugged' novel
Ayn Rand was a Russian-born writer who immigrated to the United States in 1926, worked as a screenwriter and playwright and wrote several novels expressing an individualistic philosophy she called “objectivism.” Rand’s novels and outspoken ideology were subjects of academic and media debate from the onset of her literary career, but controversy soared with the 1957 publication of her 1,168-page “Atlas Shrugged.” The novel describes a revolt by b…
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