Laurel Rosenhall

A lot of them have multiple properties, so they still have homes in California, but they did change their official residence.

And then meanwhile, the billionaires who want to remain in California have been plotting about how to adjust to this thing and, you know, how to basically mitigate or reduce their tax liability if it passes, right?

Yes, exactly that.

It was kind of wild.

I went to this conference in Orange County a couple of months ago where a bunch of tax advisors and wealth managers were meeting.

And one of the sessions they had was basically kind of like how to help your clients reduce their net worth.

So I

suggestions that were like, oh, move your Picasso out of your house in Beverly Hills to your house in Aspen, or if you were carrying more insurance than you needed on your wife's, you know, six-figure diamond necklace that just reduced the insurance policy to what it's actually worth because that's what you'll be taxed on.

But to be fair, there are people who are just like, OK, fine.

You know, we live in California.

This state has been wonderful to us.

If we have to pay more, we will.

So they're really drilling into the specifics of the way that it's structured.

Just the idea of taxing assets and the requirement that if this thing passes, you know, every taxpayer in California will have to declare if they are a billionaire or not.

And then if so, they will have to declare the value of all of their property and assets.

And so there are people who just feel that that is wrong.

They're arguing that a retroactive tax, because it would tax people who are in the state as of January 1st,

is unconstitutional and a major argument from Silicon Valley is that this tax would absolutely devastate California's ability to continue dominating in the world of innovation.

Absolutely.

All of those billionaires who would have to pay this wealth tax on their assets, they already pay lots of income tax.