Billionaires Spend 0.07% of Their Wealth to Kill a 5% Tax and Call It a Seventy-Fold Return
Billionaires Spend 0.07% of Their Wealth to Avoid a 5% Tax
Thirty California billionaires put up $293 million to defeat Proposition 40, a one-time 5% tax on their fortunes that would have raised at least $107 billion. In a satirical manifesto, the venture firm Endlessen Horrorwitz frames the spending as a bargain: 0.07% of their wealth to avoid 5%, a return of roughly seventy to one. It also notes that about 230 other billionaires would owe the tax but paid nothing to stop it, and promises a new committee within twelve months.
We spent 0.07% to save 5%. That is a seventy-fold return, and the state calls it influence. We call it the only public program that has ever paid us back.