If we don't allow them to hold us hostage they will all leave.

I think your sentiment is a good example of massive propaganda people fall for. The wealth tax in question would tax Sergey roughly 50 billion the first year as it is written now.

HE would have to sell his ownership of Google almost immediately. This isn't about paying taxes this is about forcing owners of companies to liquidate almost entirely.

How did you come up with 50 billion? It’s a 2% one time tax no?

No, Sergey owns non pubic, shares that are not available on the open market that have move voting rights. So the tax 'values' those at the % of voting rights as a percentage of the company valuation.

Likewise, Evan Spiegal would have to sell 100% of his SNAP stock the first year because of how the voting rights work.

Sergei Brin is worth around $230b. The tax seeks around 5% of that, which is $11.5b. I don’t see how, when most of his net worth is in Alphabet stock, he would have to sell anything but trivial amounts of his ownership of the company to fund this. The tax is also one time, so saying things like “the first year” is extremely misleading. It seems to me like the real propaganda is your post.

I believe it's calculated based on voting equity, of which Sergey owns significantly more than 230b.

The "tax based on control" clause (quoted below) doesn't apply to public companies.

Yes it does, it applies to any ownership of shares that are not traded on the public exchange. This means the shares the Google founders have, or Zuck, or the owner of SNAP, or any number of large companies founders would have to sell a significant portion.

From my reading it is only equity that has monetary value that they are taxing; this has nothing to do with disgorging voting stock, it is merely intended to raise revenue.

For private companies, valuation for the purposes of this tax is company-value * max(% owned, % controlled)

From https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/initiatives/pdfs/25-0024A1%2...

Section 50303(c)(3)(C) says "For any interests that confer voting or other direct control rights, the percentage of the business entity owned by the taxpayer shall be presumed to be not less than the taxpayer's percentage of the overall voting or other direct control rights."

Section (D) says that the tax applies to earnable profit-percentage even if the prerequisites for said earn haven't occurred.

the math is not mathing today

Google is public, so the 5% of max(ownership, control) clause doesn't apply.

However, there are a bunch of private unicorns whose founders are subject to the tax even though their ownership is well under $1B.

See Section 50303(c)(3)(C) quoted above.

It does apply, because Sergey's shares are not the same kind available on the public exchange.

Everyone seems to be objecting to the arithmetic error, but what’s more interesting is the underlying assumption: that “Sergey Brin owes $50B” is so morally dispositive that it would end the argument.

Brin is not a sympathetic marginal case. He is the standard: founder equity, $1 salary, unrealized appreciation, deferral, and access to liquidity without needing wage income.

It is a little strange to look at a very large tax bill landing at his feet and decide that is where the scandal starts. Is the number supposed to make the idea disqualifying because it is drastically more than most people make in many lifetimes?

Said another way, the revealing part is not that someone on the internet multiplied wrong. The revealing part is how quickly the error resolves into a fairness argument on behalf of Sergey Brin, a man whose fortune is almost a laboratory specimen of the thing the regular income tax keeps failing, decade after decade, to reach.

Not only this, but a person with this much wealth cannot possibly consume enough to pay their fair share in taxes. They've already used all the loopholes to avoid income taxes which aren't even progressive for billionaires as mentioned by Buffet.

it's not an arithmetic error, it's literally written in the tax bill to value voting ownership shares as a percentage of the company if they are not available on the open market.

Section 50303(c)(3)(C) says "For any interests that confer voting or other direct control rights, the percentage of the business entity owned by the taxpayer shall be presumed to be not less than the taxpayer's percentage of the overall voting or other direct control rights."

Sergey Brin is not 'hoarding' anything. There is not a bank vault of jewels or wheat that the rest of the world is deprived of having. Stock 'wealth' is not a fixed quantity of wealth. To think that divesting people of ownership is egregious and immoral.

You are advocating for laws you do not read, regarding concepts of which you have not read about nor seem to be able to comprehend, and people like that are my enemy.