Editor,
A recent Daily Journal article disclosed that proponents of the controversial proposed California Wealth Tax claim it will generate $100 billion in a single year. It also stated those billions will come from a 5% tax on roughly 200 California billionaires. Can’t anybody here do basic fifth grade level arithmetic?
If you are going to generate $100 billion from only 200 taxpayers you need to collect $500 million from each one of them on average. If you are taking “only” 5% of their wealth, that would mean the average net worth of those 200 individuals would have to be 20 times $500 million. Meaning each billionaire would need to have an average net worth of $10 billion.
ChatGPT estimates the average net worth of the 200 billionaires is $1.5 billion. Thus the tax proceeds would be only $15 billion, not $100 billion. Not even close! This is NUTS!
Phil Calandra
Foster City
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(3) comments
Great job Phil. (Not a slam on you, but on them) As a retired 6th gr math teacher, I know you get it. Surly there is room for the proposition proponents to join a 5th or 6th gr math class. Thanks for your post.
Way to go Phil!
An example of why our schools need to emphasize basic Math and English more than they do.
Thanks Phil - I had not looked into the details so far. I wonder how the politicians can continue to fool us or mislead us with their phony numbers whenever they come up with yet another bond request that DOES NOT increase our taxes. Let's hope the propositions fails.
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