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What California Residents Should Learn from The Rolling Stones: Estate Planning Strategies to Protect Your Wealth from Confiscatory Taxation

What California Residents Should Learn from The Rolling Stones: Estate Planning Strategies to Protect Your Wealth from Confiscatory Taxation

california governor gavin newsom attends 119281428 scaled

Source: New York Post – What Gavin Newsom Could Learn from The Rolling Stones

Who This Article Is For

If you’re a successful California resident with significant assets—whether you’re approaching the billion-dollar threshold or have accumulated substantial wealth through real estate, business ownership, or investments—you need to understand how California’s political climate threatens your financial security and what estate planning strategies can protect your family’s wealth.

The 2026 California Billionaire Tax: A Watershed Moment

What’s being proposed and why it matters to all Californians:

The 2026 Billionaire Tax Act ballot measure represents an unprecedented assault on wealth in California:

The proposal:

  • One-time seizure of 5% of total assets (not just income)
  • Applies to anyone with $1 billion or more in net worth
  • Affects fewer than 300 California residents
  • Pushed by Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West
  • Designed to replace anticipated federal funding cuts

    • Why this affects YOU even if you’re not a billionaire:

    “What begins with the billionaires won’t end with them.”

    If millions of voters in a referendum can expropriate a few hundred people this time, what stops them from:

  • Lowering the threshold to $500 million next?
  • Then $100 million?
  • Then $10 million?
  • Eventually targeting anyone with “excess” wealth?

    • Historical precedent:

    When UK implemented 98% top marginal tax rates in the 1970s, it didn’t stop there. The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Rod Stewart, and countless business owners fled. California is following the same destructive path.

    The California Exodus: Billionaires Are Already Leaving

    Who’s leaving and what it means for California’s economy:

    Tech Titans Abandoning California

    Elon Musk:

  • Left California for Texas in 2020
  • Relocated Tesla headquarters to Austin
  • Moved SpaceX operations
  • Shifted X (Twitter) to Texas
  • Stated California’s policies as reason

    • Tax revenue lost: Estimated $1+ billion annually in personal income taxes alone, plus corporate taxes from relocated companies

    Peter Thiel:

  • Florida resident
  • Shifted operations out of California in stages
  • Cited regulatory burden and tax climate
  • Taking Founders Fund investments with him

    • David Sacks:

  • Relocated to Austin, Texas
  • Moved Craft Ventures (venture capital firm)
  • Part of growing Austin tech scene

    • Google Founders (Sergey Brin & Larry Page):

  • Reportedly cutting California ties
  • Exploring other state residences
  • Taking wealth management operations elsewhere

    • Lynsi Snyder (In-N-Out Burger heiress):

  • Announced move to Tennessee (July 2025)
  • California’s most iconic burger chain owned by out-of-state resident
  • Symbolic of California’s declining appeal

    • The Corporate Exodus

    Statistics that should alarm every California taxpayer:

    2011-2021: California lost 1.9% of corporate headquarters

    2022: Net emigration of 741 firms

    2023: Net emigration of 531 firms

    January 2026: $1 trillion in wealth fled California in one month over billionaire tax fears

    Financial Times finding: “California and New York have, by far, the highest domestic outflow of domestic companies across the US” since 2015

    Estate Planning Lessons from California’s War on Wealth

    How to protect your family regardless of net worth:

    1. Establish Tax Domicile Outside California

    Legal residency change is the ultimate protection:

    States with no state income tax:

  • Texas
  • Florida
  • Nevada
  • Washington
  • Wyoming
  • Tennessee (no income tax on wages)
  • Alaska
  • South Dakota
  • New Hampshire (wages only)

    • How to properly change California domicile:

    Simply owning property elsewhere is NOT enough. California will fight to keep you as a taxpayer. You must:

    1. Physical presence

  • Spend more than 183 days per year in new state
  • Spend fewer than 45 days in California (safer rule)
  • Document time with travel records, credit card receipts, cell phone data

    • 2. Change voter registration

  • Register to vote in new state
  • Cancel California registration
  • Vote in new state elections

    • 3. Obtain new driver’s license

  • Get new state driver’s license within 30 days of move
  • Surrender California license
  • Register vehicles in new state

    • 4. Establish primary residence

  • Declare new state home as primary residence
  • Sell California home or clearly establish it as secondary
  • New home should be larger, nicer, or similar quality
  • Keep most valuable possessions in new state

    • 5. Financial ties

  • Change mailing address with banks, IRS, etc.
  • Obtain new state professional licenses if applicable
  • Join clubs, organizations in new state