Half in California would support one-time tax on ultrawealthy: Poll

Half of California’s registered voters say they would back a ballot initiative — championed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and opposed by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) — that would implement a one-time tax on the state’s ultrawealthy residents, according to the UC Berkeley Citrin Center for Public Opinion Research-POLITICO poll released Tuesday.

The poll found that 50 percent of respondents support the Billionaire Tax Act, a 5 percent tax on billionaires, with 41 percent who strongly support it and 9 percent who somewhat support it. Just over a quarter of voters, or 28 percent, say they oppose it, with 5 percent who somewhat oppose it and 22 percent who strongly oppose it.

Twenty-three percent say they are unsure. The poll found that 14 percent lean yes, 7 percent are completely undecided and 2 percent lean no.

“Most experts on the initiative process say that the yes side has an advantage to start with because no one’s been talking about it and it sounds like a good idea, but then once the campaign begins you whittle away at that,” Jack Citrin, a University of California, Berkeley political science professor and the poll’s co-director, told Politico.

Opinion among voters also differs when it comes to whether the ballot initiative really will be a one-time tax. UC Berkeley-Politico found 44 percent are confident that, if approved by voters, the tax will be applied once. A majority say they are not confident that the tax will be applied one time, at 56 percent.

The poll also found that 54 percent of Golden State voters worry the tax will push afflient individuals out of state, with 63 percent concerned the same will happen to businesses.

“If you’re the yes side you have to hammer away at: This isn’t true, they’re not going to leave, it’s just scare tactics,” Citrin told Politico.

Another worry among 67 percent of voters is that California’s middle class will see their taxes go up. The large majority of voters, at 85 percent, say the state wastes its tax dollars. This breaks down to 50 percent who say the state wastes “a lot,” 35 percent who say “some,” 9 percent who say not much and 5 percent who say they are not sure.

Voters also have little confidence in California’s tax regime, the survey found. Fifty-seven percent say they believe they pay more taxes than they should.

Sanders rallied 2,000 supporters in Los Angeles last month, telling them that the “billionaire class cannot have it all.” He argued that the tax will uplift thousands of low-income Californians in one of the country’s most expensive states to live in.

“For these people, enough is never enough,” Sanders said, according to the Los Angeles Times. “They are dedicated to accumulating more and more wealth and power … no matter how many low-income and working-class people will die because they no longer have health insurance.”

The ballot initiative has California Democrats divided. Newsom told The New York Times in January that there is “no question” that the initiative “will be defeated.” The governor’s concern is that a wealth tax would stifle innovation in the tech industry.

“I’ll do what I have to do to protect the state,” Newsom added.

The UC Berkeley-Politico survey was conducted Feb. 25 to March 3 and included 1,220 respondents. The margin of error is 2.8 percentage points.