{"id":507468,"date":"2026-10-25T11:58:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-25T11:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/507468\/"},"modified":"2026-10-25T11:58:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-25T11:58:12","slug":"4-california-billionaires-saw-their-wealth-soar-322-over-the-past-two-years-but-paid-0-04-a-year-in-state-income-tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/507468\/","title":{"rendered":"4 California billionaires saw their wealth soar 322% over the past two years \u2014 but paid 0.04% a year in state income tax"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

California, like most states, taxes the wages people earn from their jobs. But in 2019, 2020 and 2023, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin each owed California just 13.3 cents<\/a> in income tax on what they got from Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), according to estimates from three economists. <\/p>\n

That’s because Alphabet paid the 53-year-olds $1 each in those years. <\/a>Neither reported selling Alphabet stock, and the company didn’t pay dividends until 2024. <\/p>\n

Must Read <\/p>\n

The figures come from a working paper by economists Jasper Boll, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, <\/a>who work at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Paris School of Economics. <\/p>\n

The National Bureau of Economic Research, a nonprofit research group in Cambridge<\/a>, Massachusetts, released it in May and most recently revised it in August<\/a>. Like other NBER working papers, it hasn’t been peer-reviewed. <\/p>\n

The economists went through <\/a>Securities and Exchange Commission filings on the four billionaires they count as California residents. Besides Page and Brin, that’s Meta (NASDAQ:META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg<\/a>, 42, and Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang, 63<\/a>. <\/p>\n

By the end of 2025, the four were worth a combined $882 billion, up from $209 billion three years earlier. The authors link <\/a>that 322% jump to the AI boom and the run-up in Alphabet, Meta and Nvidia shares. But over the same three years, their California income tax tied to that stock averaged about 0.04% of its value a year. <\/p>\n

Why California’s income tax barely touches billionaire wealth <\/p>\n

On November 3, California voters decide on Proposition 40<\/a>, which would charge <\/a>a one-time 5% tax on the net worth of billionaires who lived in the state January 1, 2026<\/a>. They could <\/a>spread the payments over five <\/a>years<\/a>, and <\/a>most of the money would go to healthcare to help make up for <\/a>federal Medicaid cuts passed in July 2025<\/a>. California isn’t the only state looking at new taxes on the very rich<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Saez says in the paper that <\/a>he advised on how the measure was written and how much it would raise, and that he wasn’t paid for it. <\/p>\n

California, like the IRS<\/a>, <\/a>doesn’t tax a stock’s gain until it’s sold<\/a>. By the end of 2025, <\/a>about 97% of the four’s wealth was in Alphabet, Meta and Nvidia stock<\/a>, according to the paper. <\/p>\n

From 2019 through 2025, their wealth grew by $723 billion<\/a>, the economists found. Yet over those years, they reported only $11.8 billion in gains from stock sales<\/a>. <\/p>\n

That said, the four do pay other taxes. <\/a>Most of their tax bill comes from the corporate taxes their companies pay<\/a>. Counting those and every other tax, the authors estimate the four paid 19.5% of their economic income<\/a> from 2019 through 2025. That’s a broad measure of income that <\/a>includes company profits never paid out to shareholders<\/a>. By comparison, Americans overall paid 31.4%<\/a> by the same measure. <\/p>\n

Read More: Vanguard reveals what’s coming for U.S. stocks \u2014 and it could be bad news for this group of investors<\/a> <\/p>\n

How much would Proposition 40 actually raise? <\/p>\n

Boll, Saez and Zucman expect the tax to raise about $100 billion<\/a>. They also argue that <\/a>California wouldn’t lose much income tax if some billionaires leave. In fact, from 2023 through 2025, the state’s billionaires paid only about $3.2 billion <\/a>a year in state income tax, roughly 2.4% of California’s income tax revenue. <\/p>\n

But two economists at the Hoover Institution, <\/a>a public policy think tank at Stanford University<\/a>, came up with a much smaller number. In their own paper, Joshua Rauh and Benjamin Jaros <\/a>estimate the tax would collect closer to $30 billion. Their estimate is lower because it <\/a>subtracts billionaires who left the state and allows for the chance that courts strike down all or part of the tax. <\/p>\n

What California voters should know <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, California voters will also see <\/a>Propositions 41 and 42, two rival measures<\/a> funded mainly by <\/a>Building a Better California, a California political committee whose top backers include Brin<\/a>. According to the state’s official voter guide, <\/a>Proposition 40 could pass and still not take effect<\/a>. If Proposition 41 or 42 also passes with more yes votes, a court could rule that the measures clash. So if you support Proposition 40, voting yes on 41 or 42 could help block it. <\/p>\n

If you invest, the same basic rule applies to you. Under IRS rules, <\/a>a stock in a regular taxable brokerage account isn’t taxed on its gain until you sell<\/a>. If you’ve held it for more than a year by then, <\/a>most people pay a federal rate of 15% or less on the profit<\/a>. Gains on shares held a year or less are <\/a>taxed at the same income tax rates as your wages<\/a>. <\/p>\n

What To Read Next <\/p>\n

Join 250,000+ readers and get Moneywise’s best stories and exclusive interviews first \u2014 clear insights curated and delivered weekly. Subscribe now<\/a>. <\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Moneywise.com<\/a> under the title: 4 California billionaires saw their wealth soar 322% over the past two years \u2014 but paid 0.04% a year in state income tax<\/a> <\/p>\n

This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"California, like most states, taxes the wages people earn from their jobs. But in 2019, 2020 and 2023,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507469,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[37356,387,3887,7,9,8,383,9180,16281,3127,37357,9472,16282,31007,37358,15630,37359,388,8523,7037,16283,16284,17075,37360,1747,37361],"class_list":["post-507468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-401k","tag-business","tag-business-news","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-economy","tag-finance","tag-financial-information","tag-investing","tag-investment-tools","tag-investor","tag-market-news","tag-mortgage","tag-mutual-funds","tag-personal-finance","tag-quote","tag-real-estate","tag-retirement","tag-stock","tag-stock-research","tag-stock-valuation","tag-stocks","tag-suze-orman","tag-tax","tag-track-portfolio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}