WASHINGTON- As progressives look to put a new billionaire tax on the November ballot in California, one Republican congressman is moving in the opposite direction: proposing federal legislation that would prevent states from taxing the assets of former residents.
Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin), who faces a tough re-election challenge under California's redrawn congressional maps, says he will introduce the “Keep California Jobs Act of 2026” on Friday. The measure would prohibit any state from retroactively taxing people who no longer live there.
The proposed legislation adds another layer to what has already been a heated debate over California's approach to taxing the ultra-wealthy. It has created divisions among Democrats and placed Los Angeles at the center of a broader political fight, with Bernie Sanders set to hold a rally Wednesday night in support of the wealth tax.
Kiley said he drafted the bill in reaction to reports that several of California's most prominent billionaires, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, are planning to leave the state in anticipation of the wealth tax's enactment.
“California's proposed wealth tax is an unprecedented attempt to go after people who have already left as a result of the state's bad policies,” Kiley said in a statement Wednesday. “Many of our state's top job creators are leaving preemptively.”
Kiley said it would be “fundamentally unfair” to retroactively impose taxes on former residents.
“California already has the highest income tax of any state in the country, the highest gas tax, the highest overall tax burden,” Kiley said in a speech on the House floor earlier this month. “But a wealth tax is unique because a wealth tax is not simply the taxation of earned income, it is the confiscation of assets.”
The fate of Kiley's proposal is as uncertain as its future in Congress. His 5th Congressional District, which hugs the Nevada border, has been divided into six districts under Proposition 50 approved by California voters, and he has not yet chosen one to run for re-election.
The Billionaire Tax Act, which supporters are pushing to get on the November ballot, would charge California's more than 200 billionaires a one-time 5% tax on their net worth to cover billions of dollars in Republican-led cuts to federal health care funding for low-income and middle-class residents. It is being proposed by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West.
In his speech, Kiley worried that the tax, if passed, could cause the state's economy to collapse.
“What's especially threatening about this is that our state's tax structure is essentially a house of cards,” Kiley said. “We have a system that is incredibly volatile, where the top 1% of earners account for 50% of tax revenue.”
But supporters of the wealth tax argue the measure is one of the few ways they can help the state seek new revenue as it faces economic uncertainty.
Sanders, a Vermont independent who is part of the Democrats, is urging Californians to support the measure, which he said would “provide the funding needed to prevent more than 3 million working-class Californians from losing the health care they currently have, and help prevent the closure of California hospitals and emergency rooms.”
“It should be common sense for billionaires to pay a little more so that entire communities can preserve access to life-saving health care,” Sanders said in a statement earlier this month. “Our country needs access to hospitals and emergency rooms, not more tax breaks for billionaires.”
Other Democrats aren't so sure.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is contemplating a presidential run in 2028, has opposed the measure. He has warned that a state-by-state approach to taxing the rich could stifle innovation and entrepreneurship.
Some of the world's richest people are also taking steps to defeat the measure.
Brin is donating $20 million to a California political campaign to prevent the wealth tax from becoming law, according to a disclosure reviewed by the New York Times. Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and chairman of Palantir, also donated millions to a committee working to defeat the proposed measure, the New York Times reported.
