I’ve known for some time that the state’s power class has wanted to do it – i.e., tax its refugees. People are fleeing the state for its institutional cancel culture, crumbling quality of life, taxes, and regulations but Sacramento’s tenured political grifters are still trying to keep their hands in the pockets of even the escapees.
AB 2088 is the latest attempt at cross-border taxation. It would create a wealth tax that could be assessed for 10 years after a person has left the state. It rides on the back of AB 1253 which established the job-crushing wealth tax. Residents punished with the highest taxes in the nation will continue to be flogged after they flee if the influential have their way.
Read about the bill here.
The state’s Commissariat of Revenue – Franchise Tax Board – reserves to itself the omnipotent power to define a resident without any deference or recognition of any other state’s laws. To boil the issue down to simple terms, another state’s residents get the privilege of paying California taxes. That’s right, if a person meets the residency requirements of their new state, California can override that state’s laws, impose its byzantine formula for California residency, and still hold them financially hostage.
Somehow, the Constitutional provisions over interstate commerce and the right travel would seem to have some relevance here. They do! The gambit is blatantly unconstitutional.
California, you need to be reminded that you are only one state in fifty. A person can only be a “resident” of a state, but he or she is a “citizen” of the United States. My US citizenship trumps your ham-handed attempt to avoid the consequences of transforming your state into a decaying one-party nightmare.
Watch that space. I certainly will since I am one of those refugees.
RogerG