Affluent Silicon Valley weighs stakes of California’s ‘billionaire tax’ measure

CALIFORNIA PROPOSITION 40, also known as the billionaire tax, is one of the more complicated ballot measures put before voters this November because its fate depends on two other ballot measures.

Proposition 40 — a one-time 5% tax to be imposed on roughly 200 state residents whose net worth exceeded $1 billion at the start of this year — needs to receive more votes than two countermeasures, Proposition 41 or 42,  to be enacted. If it passes, projected funding would be about $100 billion over five years, mostly to support healthcare, with some reserved for food assistance and education. But if either Propositions 41 or 42 garner more votes, the billionaire tax will be nullified.