Jon Coupal, President of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and Business Roundtable President Rob Lapsley have co-authored a new Substack post uncovering yet another way in which the so-called “Wealth Tax” is really an Everyone Tax. Here are some excerpts from their article:
“Sacramento politicians are asking Californians to believe a familiar story again: don’t worry, this tax only applies to someone else.
This time, it is wrapped in the language of fairness and sold as a “billionaire tax.” But when you actually read the fine print on how the ballot measure is structured, the reality becomes crystal clear. This is not simply a tax on billionaires. It is a framework that will allow future Legislatures to expand new taxes onto your property, savings, investments, retirement accounts, taxing millions of Californians who would never consider themselves billionaires.”
“One of the most insidious details in the bill is how the authors wrote it to allow the Legislature to circumvent Prop. 13. The authors of the measure aren’t stupid, and they deliberately structured the initiative so the current exclusion for real property exists in statute — specifically in the Revenue and Taxation Code — rather than as a permanent constitutional protection. That distinction matters enormously.
Why? Because the same measure explicitly grants the Legislature authority to amend the “2026 Billionaire Tax Act” with a two-thirds vote, so long as lawmakers claim the changes further the purposes of the act. In other words, the initiative itself hands future Legislatures the power to rewrite key portions of the tax structure after voters approve it.
That is the bridge around Proposition 13.
The measure first creates constitutional authority for non-uniform taxation of property. It then places the actual exclusion for real property into statutory language that can later be amended by the Legislature with a two-thirds vote. So while supporters say today that homes and real estate are excluded, the mechanism to remove that exclusion without a vote of the people already exists inside the measure itself.
The result is a simple but dangerous formula:
- Create new constitutional authority for wealth taxes with pre-planned loopholes to exploit long after voters make their decisions
- Place property exclusions in amendable statuteinstead of permanent constitutional language to protect taxpayers.
- Empower the politicians in the Legislature to later rewrite those statutes with a two-thirds vote
- Circumvent Prop. 13 by allowing the Legislature to expand taxes onto real propertywithout going back to voters for another statewide ballot measure.
Read the Substack article here.
