Jan. 28, 2026 6 AM PT
To the editor: Having been a tax practitioner now for more than 60 years — much of it involving the very wealthy — the entire project of the California wealth tax is ludicrous because the premise for its one-time imposition is misleading, if not dishonest (“Is California’s proposed billionaire tax smart policy? History holds lessons,” Jan. 26).
The proposed tax is being sold as a replacement for the imminent loss of federal Medicaid. Any “tax expert” with common sense is well aware that many — perhaps a significant majority — of the targets of the tax will contest it (and aggressively discount their assets in self-assessing their tax) at the administrative (appeals) level and, if not satisfied, will proceed with litigation.
This process takes years to play out. The state administrative behemoth will be spending enormous amounts of (non-billionaire) taxpayer dollars to collect money that will arrive far into the future and long after the alleged need for imminent spending on any healthcare needs — if it arrives at all.
The proponents should know this quite well, indicating that the entire initiative is an asset seizure masquerading as moral virtue.
Kip Dellinger, Santa Monica
This writer is the former tax policy and practice columnist for Tax Notes magazine.
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To the editor: Rather than imposing a “wealth tax,” wouldn’t it make more sense to just rewrite the tax code so that the loopholes that essentially give multimillionaires and billionaires a free ride were sewn up so that they had to pay their fair share?
Susan Greenberg, Los Angeles
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To the editor: The backers of the wealth tax bill claimed that they learned from Europe’s experience. But why did the European countries that repealed such wealth taxes repeal them outright instead of learning from what happened and improving on how the taxes were implemented?
Ming Lai, Frisco, Texas