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Comment by csense | Hacker News Reader

> Californians will vote early next month on Proposition 40, a one-off 5% tax on the roughly 250 billionaires who live in the state.

If you have $1 billion and you're going to get taxed $50 million in California, why not spend $1 million to buy a house in some other state and move there on paper before the tax goes into effect?

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I listened to an Ezra Klein podcast episode where he talked about this.

I’m paraphrasing heavily but it went something like, “a friend complained that he had to live in Florida 50% of the year to avoid paying New York taxes and he hates Florida. I thought that the point of having all of that money was living the lifestyle you wanted. It seemed like the tax avoidance had become more important than personal happiness.”

I never understood the hate for taxes. As if people like Zuckerberg could thrive in a warzone.

Some people think they have payed plenty of taxes and dont think additional taxes will be put to good use

And while they certainly have a right to think this, doing so has no effect on their tax liability.

People also have the right to move and that does affect tax liability

sure it does. People vote to approve taxes and elect their government.

I don’t hate taxes per se but I hate that the government will take tax dollars earmarked for one purpose, which is how they got the tax approved by the voters in the first place, and move it to the general fund where they can spend it on their pet project.

This is no different than any other broken campaign promise, and is indeed a largely unsolved problem in the US at least.

The tax applies retroactively to the 2026 tax year, even if you moved out sometime this year.

Because it's selfish and entitled?

Indeed. Why not commit tax fraud?

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