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I'm not a tax lawyer, so take this with a grain of salt, but yes, I think they were trying to close loopholes, but did so sloppily. Read the text (https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/initiatives/pdfs/25-0024A1%2...), specifically 50303 section c. It seems to me that the authors were, as you say, trying to close a loophole, namely that where I set up a Nevada LLC to which I hold 99% of voting shares but 1% of outstanding equity, put my assets in it, and just direct the LLC to spend on things I want it to--but in the process, they failed to realize that non-public super-voting shares (like Google class B shares) seem to fall into category (3) of section (c) (i.e. neither sole proprietorships nor publicly traded assets). I don't think that's a great design, though it's still worth noting that it doesn't rule out privileged shares in general--GOOGL, to give an example, are privileged voting shares that trade publicly, and thus are obviously under category (1), and assessed per their FMV. But in any case, I stand by my broader point: this is a specific detail of how the California proposal has been written; it's not a fundamental aspect of wealth taxes. Switzerland has a wealth tax that does not have this aspect, for example. |