California Billionaire Tax Qualifies for November Ballot

California’s billionaire tax proposal has garnered enough signatures to become eligible for the general election ballot on Nov. 3, Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber announced June 17.

Weber said the initiative gained 962,000 required projected signatures, calculated through random sampling, 110 percent of the approximately 875,000 valid signatures needed by June 24. She said she will certify the initiative as qualified on June 25.

The measure is a proposed one-time tax of up to 5 percent on individuals with a net worth of more than $1 billion living in the state as of Jan. 1, 2026, with some exceptions that include certain pensions and retirement accounts.

The state, home to more billionaires than any other, already relies on its top 1 percent of earners for nearly half of its personal income tax revenue.

Attorney General Rob Bonta said the tax would likely generate tens of billions of dollars over several years, and that 90 percent of this revenue would be used for healthcare and 10 percent for food assistance or education-related programs.

Those subject to the one-time tax will have the option of paying it over a five-year period.

“When funding is cut, it brings a world of pain,” said Mayra Castañeda, a member of the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW), one of the initiative’s backers. “It’s clear that most Californians and most billionaires recognize how reasonable and necessary this proposal is—both to keep emergency rooms open and to save California businesses from closing.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has publicly voiced his opposition to the initiative over fears that it would drive out high-income earners, in January pledged to fight the proposal.

He told Bloomberg Businessweek that a wealth tax would eventually lead to a decline in the state’s tax base, cutting revenue meant for social services and education, and that he had met with several billionaires who were concerned about the initiative.

“I’ve been very mindful, as a guy who budgets for this state, that we rely on a very small number of people that allows us to do historic things,” Newsom said.

On June 17, the SEIU-UHW labor union said that it would abandon the 5 percent tax if Newsom would join them in supporting a 2 percent wealth tax, which would instead have to be passed by the Legislature and face a June 25 deadline.

“A 2 percent one-time tax on that accumulated wealth is modest by any objective measure especially if it means keeping emergency rooms open and saving patient lives,” backers wrote in a letter to Newsom.

Tara Gallegos, a spokesperson for Newsom, said that scaling the tax back doesn’t remove its “fundamental flaws that harm working Californians.”

“The Governor supports making the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share, but this poorly designed state-only measure will defund teachers, schools, clinics, and public safety,” she said in a statement.

Many California billionaires have become outspoken critics of the proposal, including Google cofounder Sergey Brin, who donated $82 million to a political committee called Building a Better California that backs initiatives opposing the billionaire tax, and has raised over $118 million.

According to the Hoover Institution in a March 2026 report, nearly 30 percent of the proposal’s tax base has already left the state, including Google cofounders Larry Page and Brin, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, PayPal’s Peter Thiel, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, car loan magnate Don Hankey, director Steven Spielberg, and over 45 California LLCs.

The report found that tax revenue would likely total $40 billion over five years, instead of the $100 billion that backers hope for.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.