You Can Never Leave: California Revisits Retroactive Taxes to Cover Massive Budget Woes

Under Gavin Newsom's leadership, the state of California went from a $21.4 billion budget surplus in 2019 (the year he took office) to a $45 billion deficit in 2024. But rather than rein in the spending that's driving his state to bankruptcy, Newsom and California Democrats are revisiting the idea of a retroactive tax on billionaires who have already left the state.

Unable to stem the exodus, California is again toying with retroactive taxes — targeting the wealthy regardless of whether they flee the state. Welcome to Hotel California, “you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”...https://t.co/FvJsTyrlh7
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) December 2, 2025

Here's more from Turley:

Previously, the state moved to tax people who left the state. Now, the state is seeking a billionaire tax and making it retroactive. Thus, even if you were waiting to decide to leave, it is too late. You are being taxed for the prior year.
California Governor Gavin Newsom is pushing the retroactive billionaire tax targeting the roughly 220 billionaires residing in California in 2025. It signals not just desperation in the face of crippling debt and overspending but a recognition that California is chasing its highest earners out of the state.
The “2026 Billionaires Tax Act” would impose a one-time 5% tax on individual wealth exceeding $1 billion. While technically using 2026 wealth figures, it would apply to billionaires who resided in California in 2025. So you cannot hope to flee… at least with your wealth intact. It is a penalty for those who stayed too long hoping that rational minds would prevail in California.

Back in 2023, the state decided to impose a one and a half percent tax on billionaires who moved out of the state. This was, as Turley described, a "bait-and-switch" because the after two years, the tax would expand to include anyone with a "worldwide net worth" of $50 million.

Of course, the state cannot constitutionally tax people for years they didn't live or earn money in the state. This violates the 14th Amendment and the Commerce Clause. The Supreme Court has also previously ruled that states cannot penalize residents who move away, this includes Shaffer v. Carter (1920), that said states can tax in-state income of non-residents, but not out-of-state earnings; Oklahoma Tax Commission v. Chickasaw Nation (1995) where the state cannot tax income with no connection to the state (in this case, on Indian reservations); Zobel v. Williams (1982); and Saenz v. Roe (1999) that said states cannot punish people for moving.

CA once tried to tax the pension of a former boss of mine. He’d worked at the Skunk Works in the 60’s and early 70’s and then moved to Georgia, where he worked for the rest of a long career.

His response was short, and pungent.
— Will Collier (@willcollier) December 2, 2025

As it should be.

Democrats like Newsom can never have enough of your money to waste. pic.twitter.com/IkJY9oeX2d
— Ray 🇺🇸 (@RayOFreedom) December 2, 2025

That much is painfully clear.

Should be challenged under freedom of movement

Freedom of Movement: The tax burdened citizens' implied constitutional right to travel freely between states, a fundamental privilege of national citizenship under the Privileges and Immunities Clause (Art. IV, § 2) and emerging…
— Rich Arnold (@rcarnold1) December 2, 2025

California has tried this repeatedly and keeps getting smacked down by the courts.

Newsom gets really defensive when you talk about California losing people — this would not be happening if California was remotely well-governed. https://t.co/R15uZJxwlr
— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) December 2, 2025

It is not remotely well-governed.

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