Tax Reform

Two basic premises of a modern democracy are that: (1) people should be appropriately compensated for their contributions to generating societal wealth, and (2) societal wealth in excess of this amount should be responsibly invested to serve the common good. Our United States government today is failing to live up to either of these responsibilities. In particular, a large fraction of our collective wealth is being hoarded by the ultra-wealthy via a variety of sophisticated financial strategies and tax-evasion schemes.

A fundamental requirement for a democracy that prioritizes the needs of all of its citizens is that it have sufficient financial resources to invest on their behalf. This in turn has led to a variety of proposals for more effectively taxing the wealthy. Unsurprisingly , wealthy Americans have proven highly resourceful in arguing against these ideas and/or in finding ways to evade their consequences. One group that has been at the forefront of the battle to Tax the Rich is the Patriotic Millionaires.

Congressional Initiatives

Coming soon

State Legislative Initiatives

Washington legislators recently passed a bill, expected to go into effect in 2028, that applies a 9.9 percent tax rate only to personal income above $1 million (Washington until now has been one of only nine states that don’t tax personal income at all). The state estimates the new tax will affect about 20,000 households (less than half a percent of the state’s population).

State Legislative Initiatives (California)

Coming soon

State Citizens’ Initiatives

Massachusetts voters in 2022 passed a 4 percent surcharge on annual taxable income that exceeds $1 million. Since the bill took effect in 2023, the state has collected nearly $6 billion in additional tax revenue (and the number of millionaires in the state has increased). A number of other states (California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Michigan, New York, and Rhode Island) are now debating similar measures (motivated by shortfalls in their state budgets).

State Citizens’ Initiatives (California)

Californians are currently trying to qualify a measure for the November, 2026 ballot that would levy a one-time 5-percent tax on the total wealth of the state’s roughly 200 billionaires.