California billionaire tax proposal garners enough signatures to head to ballot

Proponents of a proposal to levy a one-time tax on California billionaires say they’ve gathered enough signatures to place the measure on the ballot in November.

The campaign says it has collected more than 1.5m signatures, according to a statement.

The proposal has ignited a political uproar in Silicon Valley, with tech titans having threatened to leave the state and the governor, Gavin Newsom, opposing the proposal.

The measure imposes a one-time 5% tax on the assets of billionaires – including stocks, art, businesses, collectibles and intellectual property – to backfill federal funding cuts to health services for lower-income people that were signed by Donald Trump last year. The tax is sponsored by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, and would apply retroactively to billionaires living in the state as of 1 January.

So, a person worth exactly $1 billion would owe $50 million. How will they survive on only $950 million?