What extreme wealth costs everyone else — the excess, the extraction, and the harm
California voters are considering Proposition 40, a one-time 5 percent tax on the state’s billionaires. An analysis for Tax the Ultra Rich Now identified 22 California billionaires who gave substantial funds or opposed the measure; their combined wealth rose 64 percent in 20 months, and some donated millions to the No on 40 campaign.
A Data for Progress poll for the Institute for Policy Studies finds likely U.S. voters view private jets as net harmful by 13 points. 72% back cracking down on tax evasion by jet owners, and 69% want higher airport fees for private jets.
A coalition of more than 20 North Carolina groups is campaigning against ballot amendments that would cap income tax rates and limit local property taxes, arguing they favor corporations and the wealthy while squeezing schools and local services. Organizers report hundreds of thousands of doors knocked and tens of thousands of pledges collected.
Cyprus's Parliament held hearings on reports that Deloitte's Cyprus affiliate and MeritServus backdated documents for Abramovich-owned companies, enabling billions in assets to move to the British Virgin Islands. Officials said police would assess the claims; Abramovich's lawyers deny tax evasion.
— via OCCRP
Half of the 14 billionaires in Bloomberg's "$160 billion hole" for the UK don't qualify under Bloomberg's own two conditions: three hadn't actually moved out in the window, and four were credited with wealth that isn't theirs or isn't theirs alone. Bloomberg's own data also shows only $39 billion of the $160 billion was UK-based to begin with.
— via Tax Justice Network, Tax Justice Network
California's Proposition 40 would levy a one-time 5 percent tax on the total net wealth of roughly 200 billionaires, the first wealth tax of its kind in the world, and its backers expect it to raise about $100 billion over five years. About 90 percent would go to replace federal health care cuts, while the billionaires it targets are spending hundreds of millions on competing ballot measures.
— via Truthout, Marianne Dhenin
Deloitte staff in Cyprus backdated and rubber-stamped more than 1,000 documents for Roman Abramovich between 1999 and 2013, a leak-based investigation found, making roughly $600 million in luxury assets and nearly $2 billion in cash simply vanish from company books.
— via ICIJ, Joanna Robin
Readers sound off: one man's decades-long Amazon boycott, a dig at "Kensington Kemi," and a challenge to the claim Ed Davey leads the most successful Liberal gang in a century. Plus, why tax the super-rich when you can just wave them goodbye.
— via The Guardian — Inequality, Guardian Staff
Six million cubic metres of dredged sand are becoming 25 artificial islands in the Maldives, home to a $790 million luxury zone where owning a beneficial stake can be made illegal to disclose without a court order. Critics say the project's offshore banks, tax breaks and new golden-visa scheme risk turning the archipelago into a money-laundering haven.
— via OCCRP
America's three million "Main Street Millionaires" quietly hold thirteen times the combined wealth of the Forbes 400, a new book finds, their fortunes built on pass-through businesses and tax changes they helped lobby for. Less visible than billionaires but far more politically entrenched, this group now controls roughly $55 trillion.
— via Jacobin, Daniel Colligan
A new index finds California's top 99 political donors outspent the bottom 99.9% of residents and businesses combined over two decades, roughly $5.8 billion in all. Chevron leads the list, trailed by DaVita, the Realtors' association and Philip Morris.
— via Capital & Main, Mark Kreidler
22 California billionaires have poured over $150 million into fighting a one-time wealth tax: even as their combined fortunes grew $282.6 billion, more than 64 percent, in under 20 months. Google's Sergey Brin alone gave $102 million while his wealth jumped to $253 billion, now 83,498 times the median California household's net worth.
— via Inequality.org, Chris Mills Rodrigo
From the article:
The political action committee set up by billionaires angry about the proposed wealth tax on the November ballot has raised an astonishing $91 million in the last seven weeks alone from wealthy individuals.
Building a Better California was established in February, as billionaires’ concern over the measure ramped up. Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who is the driving force behind the committee, gave another $20 million in July, upping his total to $102 million. Building a Better California has raised $229 million total since launching.
The measure did not officially qualify for the November ballot until mid-June. The group has pumped money into opposing the tax, now Prop 40, and into backing two measures — Props 41 and 42 — meant to nullify or blunt the tax if it does pass. The number of individuals giving more than $1 million to the PAC is staggering, even by the standards of California’s unwieldy, expensive election landscape.
Proposition 50, the Gov. Gavin Newsom-led 2025 ballot measure that temporarily redrew California’s House district boundaries, received 25 donations of at least $1 million, and his 2021 anti-recall committee had 22 such donations. But only four of the Prop 50 or anti-recall committee’s million-dollar donors were individuals, said Rob Pyers, director of research at the California Target Book, a nonpartisan compendium of California political information. The other donors to the Newsom-led efforts were “union groups, tribal organizations or other committees,” Pyers said.
Meanwhile, Building a Better California has 20 donors who have contributed $1 million or more, all of them individuals.
Rockefeller died worth roughly $30bn in today's dollars. Elon Musk alone is worth some 30 times that, and the piece argues the real gap isn't just fortune size but what unregulated money and offshore secrecy now let the ultra-rich do with it.
— via The Guardian — Inequality, Casey Michel
Cal Labor Federation president Lorena Gonzalez says Proposition 40 — opposed by the ultra-rich — is needed to maintain basic health care services after cuts by President Trump and Republicans.…
— via Capital & Main, Mark Kreidler
