Make Your Voice Heard on Capitol Hill
Victory for California’s Family-Owned Businesses: Proposition 40 Defeated!
Help Us Defeat Other State and Federal Wealth Tax Measures
On November 3, California voters rejected Proposition 40, “The Billionaire Tax,” a one-time 5% tax on those individuals with a net worth over $1 billion.
It’s a great victory for family-owned businesses, hardworking families, and family offices, but the wealth tax battle is now urgently moving to other states and to the halls of Congress.
In a Newsweek article published last week, one of the authors of the proposition, Emmanuel Saez, predicted “wealth tax proposals would surface in other states and be ‘front and center’ in the 2028 Democratic presidential primary.”
Our advocacy helped ensure Prop 40’s defeat by raising serious questions about the long-term economic impact of wealth taxes. Wealth taxes will not stop with billionaires but will eventually reach every successful family business. We utilized our research from earlier this year to address the key messages that move voters on this issue. And we packaged this messaging across multiple platforms to help move support from near 60% at the beginning of the year to defeat by election day.
California wasn’t the only state where wealth was on the ballot this year. The states of Colorado and Washington also had important Wealth Tax measures on their ballots.
Click State Wealth Tax Results to see how wealth and income measures fared on state ballots across the country on election night.
For more details and information on Federal Wealth Tax Measures go to our: Federal Wealth Tax Tracker.
Make Your Voice Heard! Help Keep America’s Family-Owned Business Strong and Growing. Join Us Now by Clicking Here: Support Family-Owned Businesses. You Can Make a Difference!
THE FIGHT CONTINUES
Our research earlier this year clearly identified voter sentiment can be changed by providing reasoned arguments. The forces that created California’s Prop 40 continue to be powerful. The message that success should be penalized is resonating, so it’s incumbent on us to tell our stories, the positive impact you are making in your community, and the negative impact that savings penalty taxes would have if enacted.
Even though the defeat of Prop 40 will give pause to other efforts to tax success, we know the sentiment in Washington, DC, to pass some form of a wealth tax will continue.
With control of both the House and Senate changing hands in January, the next Congress will bring new leadership, new committee chairs and new tax priorities. Stay tuned. We’ll be sharing insights in the coming weeks on what family-owned businesses can expect from the next Congress.
We need your help now, more than ever, to tell the compelling stories of family businesses and the hard-working, successful families behind them, so that law makers understand what is at stake.
By educating lawmakers about the illiquid nature of family businesses and family offices, the ripple effect of taxing assets rather than income, and the incredible positive impact business-owning families have in their communities, we aim to protect the backbone of the American economy and the fabric of communities in which they operate.
Your advocates in Washington, D.C.
Tim Schultz, Chief Executive Officer
Family Enterprise USA Action & Family Enterprise USA
Pat Soldano, President
Family Enterprise USA Action & Family Enterprise USA
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The need for fact-based reporting of issues important to family owned businesses and protecting a lifetime of savings has never been greater. Now more than ever, successful families and family owned businesses are under fire. That's why Family Enterprise USA is passionately working to increase the awareness of issues important to family owned businesses built on hard work, while continuing to strengthen our presence on Capitol Hill. The issues we fight for or against with Congress in Washington DC include high income tax rates, possible elimination of valuation discounts, increase in capital gains tax, enactment of a wealth tax, and the continued burden of the gift tax, estate tax and generation skipping tax.
Family Enterprise USA promotes generationally owned family business creation, growth, viability, and sustainability by advocating for family businesses and their lifetime of savings with Congress in Washington DC. Since 2007, Family Enterprise USA has represented and celebrated all sizes, professions and industries of family-owned enterprises and multi-generational employers. It is a bi-partisan 501.c3 organization. Family foundations can donate.