I think you’re wrong about that, but I don’t really think this thread is the place for that argument.
I’m going to reiterate that I’m not in favor of a law that tries to collect taxes from non-residents of California. Other than that, rich Californians already pay higher taxes than rich Texans. Something is keeping them there. Sure, some of them will move, and some of them will pay more taxes. Of course that’s a good reason why a wealth tax should be a federal tax, but failing that, I’m fine with CA doing it.
Just so people have some bearing on what is being proposed here, if you start with this as a net worth in 2020 and never earn another penny after that, here’s what a proposed 0.4% marginal wealth tax on wealth over $30M would leave you after 100 years:
Looking at these numbers somehow doesn’t make me feel too sorry for the gnashing and wailing of teeth of the poor misbegotten billionaires.
And no, California would have no incentive to reduce the threshold of a wealth tax. As you can plainly see, the bulk of the impact of a wealth tax occurs for people well above the threshold. Dropping the threshold from $30M to $10M would net them a trivial increase in revenue for a much broader base of unpopularity. Clearly, the biggest lever they have to pull once a wealth tax is in place is the rate, not the threshold.
I think one of the factors for folks leaving the state is to get their tent out of the territory before the camel gets much more than it’s nose in. The camel’s nose in this case being questionable and more objectionable than usual taxation practices. Hey! We got away with it, what else can we do?
Given the history of that part of the Constitution, I’m in favor of changing it as well. Obviously, that makes it harder to enact, but being in favor of a policy is mostly not about whether it’s politically facile.