Larry Page is moving business out of CA ahead of a proposed billionaire's tax

businessinsider.com

11 points·Alupis··4 comments

Matt Mahan, Democratic mayor of San Jose, California, on Monday described the tax as "a political plan that will sink California's innovation economy."

Unfortunately, this tax policy has very predictable outcomes. People on both sides of the isle warned of this exact sort of thing, yet CA blazed ahead regardless.

The class of people with the greatest means to relocate are the very ones targeted by this tax. So they leave... and take billions in revenue, taxes and jobs with them.

The second and third-order effects will be staggering. None of Page's future taxes will be paid to CA, none of his businesses, charities and nonprofits will return, nor will Californians benefit from them either. His family will remain out of CA, preventing generations of taxes, jobs and benefits from flowing into CA.

We should be structuring an environment that entices people like Page to move here, not push them away.

The fall of the first domino if CA proceeds to propose this tax.

This one is good, actually, a natural experiment, as economists say. We get to see if billionaires leaving a state or municipality cause financial problems, or if there are unforseen consequences, like NYC's congestion taxes.

Good luck convincing them to come back if your experiment fails.

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