One Comment About Taxation – B.C.’s Proposed Wealth Tax: You Can Check Out, But Can You Ever Leave?

I’ve seen the Eagles in concert a couple of times, and I’ve been debating one last trip to see them at the Sphere in Las Vegas before they finally call it a career. “Finally” is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Earlier this year, Don Henley said 2026 was “probably” the band’s last, but they recently added Sphere shows for January 2027.

 

In rock and roll, and in tax policy, “final” and “one-time” are flexible words. Keep that in mind as British Columbians head to the polls on October 24, with the B.C. Green Party promising a “one-time” wealth tax on the province’s richest households supplemented by an annual tax.

 

Why pay attention to a party polling in single digits? Because polls point to a close race, and in a close race the fringe can set the agenda. The Greens already propped up the NDP’s one-seat majority through a 2024 cooperation accord. And they’re recycling old ideas. The wealth tax is the oldest of them.

 

Under the Greens’ Fair Share Act, the one-time tax on net wealth would be five per cent above $50 million, 10 per cent above $100 million and 20 per cent above $1 billion, which the party estimates would raise $22.2 billion. The proposed annual wealth tax would follow at two, three and five per cent on the same thresholds, raising an estimated $5.4 billion a year that fewer than 2,500 households would pay. The party’s FAQ greets them with the saucy: “congratulations, you won capitalism!”

 

The Greens’ FAQ anticipates the obvious question: what if those winners simply leave? Its answer: the levy would apply retroactively to the previous tax year, catching anyone who moves once the tax is announced. And households worth more than $50 million that move out of B.C. would pay an exit tax, which the Greens compare to the departure tax Canada charges people who emigrate. Think of it as B.C.’s own Hotel California: the wealthy can try to check out, but they can never quite leave.

 

The Greens schedule an annual sequel before the first act ends. In 2022, the federal government did the same with the ridiculously named Canada Recovery Dividend, a “one-time” 15 per cent tax on the average 2020 and 2021 taxable income of banks and life insurers above $1 billion. It arrived alongside a permanent 1.5 percentage point surtax. The federal budget’s roughly $4-billion estimate for the dividend fell to about $3 billion once the legislation was drafted.

 

History has already graded wealth taxes. According to the OECD, 12 member countries levied net wealth taxes in 1990. By 2017, only four did. France scrapped its tax effective 2018, after hundreds of wealthy taxpayers left each year. By 2024, after Norway raised its rates in 2022, some 300 multimillionaires and billionaires had moved to Switzerland. Inside Norway, the municipality of Bø cut its local wealth tax rate to attract the wealthy.

 

Canada has its own COVID-era evidence. In 2021, the Parliamentary Budget Officer costed a Liberal MP’s far gentler one-time levy: three per cent above $10 million and five per cent above $20 million. It assumed 15 to 20 per cent of the wealth would be avoided, relying on research co-authored by Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez, who has now endorsed the Greens’ plan. It warned that much of the wealth is tied to businesses that “can’t easily be sold.” The Prime Minister’s Office then requested a note on “the merit of the policy.”Documents released under access to information show the resulting memo to the Prime Minister called it “a complex issue,” with the government’s own analysis redacted. No federal wealth tax followed. The Greens’ top rate is four times higher.

 

California is the original Hotel. Its proposed one-time five per cent tax on billionaires goes to voters on November 3. At least six billionaires, including Larry Page and Peter Thiel, reportedly cut ties with the state before January 1, 2026, the residency date that determines who would pay. The Greens’ FAQ calls capital flight a “mostly-empty threat.” Yet it needs a retroactive levy and an exit tax. You don’t lock the doors against an empty threat.

 

Nor is a provincial exit tax comparable. The federal departure tax taxes gains already accrued, subject to a variety of exclusions, and lets departing taxpayers post security instead of paying immediately. A move from Vancouver to Calgary triggers none of it, and provincial income tax already follows wherever you reside on December 31.

 

A provincial exit tax raises serious legal questions. The Constitution limits provinces to “Direct Taxation within the Province.” The Charter guarantees the right to move to and live in any province and offers no cover to laws that discriminate primarily by province of present or previous residence. Meanwhile, the FAQ is silent on how residency would be defined and how illiquid assets would be valued.

 

The math matters to anyone who owns a business, farm or investment portfolio. A two per cent annual wealth tax on an asset earning five per cent takes 40 per cent of the return before income tax. At five per cent, it takes all of it, before inflation, and it’s due even when the asset falls in value. When that bill lands on illiquid wealth, assets get sold, investment goes elsewhere, and employees and suppliers feel it. And the top one per cent of earners already paid 22.1 per cent of income taxes in 2023.

 

Don Henley famously said that the Eagles would reunite when hell freezes over. They did, in 1994.

 

The Greens’ wealth tax won’t wait for hell to freeze over. Its “one-time” levy is just the opening act for an annual wealth tax with no farewell in sight, backed by a $22.2-billion estimate its FAQ never explains and an exit tax of questionable constitutionality. That isn’t tax policy. It’s resentment.

 

On October 24, British Columbians can refuse to check in.

 

One Comment About Leadership – Leaders, If You Need an Exit Fee, You Have a Retention Problem

 

Most organizations I’m familiar with say their people are their greatest asset. Easy to say. The real test is what happens when one of them wants to leave.

 

Some leaders and organizations answer that question with a fence. Bonuses that vest only if you stay another three years. Non-competes written to scare rather than protect. Benefits that vanish the day a resignation letter lands.

 

The message is unmistakable: you’re free to go, but it’s going to cost you.

 

I understand the instinct. Losing a good person hurts. Recruiting is expensive, training takes time, and the institutional knowledge that walks out the door rarely comes back. Building the fence or locking the doors feels like protection.

 

It isn’t. Exit fees don’t create loyalty. They create hostages. And hostages don’t give you their best work. They give you exactly enough to keep the penalty from triggering, while quietly counting the days until it expires. You keep their attendance and lose their effort. Worse, everyone else in the organization notices. Nothing says “we don’t think you’d stay on your own” quite like a lock on the exit.

 

There’s a deeper problem, too. When leaders lean on fences or penalties to keep people, they stop asking the question that matters: why would anyone want to leave? The fence becomes a substitute for fixing the culture, the compensation, the workload or the leadership itself. The penalty treats the symptom and lets the disease spread.

 

The best leaders and organizations I’ve worked with take the opposite approach. They make leaving easy and staying compelling. They develop people so well that competitors would happily hire them, and then they give those people every reason to say no. They pay fairly, share credit, deliver hard news honestly and build an environment where good people can do their best work. When someone does leave, they part on good terms. Those people often come back or send others in their place.

 

Here’s a simple exercise. Imagine every retention penalty in your organization disappeared tomorrow and every fence came down. No vesting cliffs, no handcuffs. How many of your best people would still be there next year?

 

If the answer makes you nervous, the problem isn’t your people. It’s the place you’ve asked them to stay.

 

Leaders – stop building fences. Build a place worth staying.

 

One Comment About Economics / Politics  – California’s Nine-Figure Fight Over a Billionaire Tax

 

On November 3, 2026, California voters will decide Proposition 40, a one-time five per cent tax on residents worth more than $1 billion. Its backers, including Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez, project roughly $100 billion for health care. California’s non-partisan Legislative Analyst is far more cautious. It says the state “probably would collect tens of billions of dollars” over several years. It adds that departures and tax planning would likely reduce ongoing revenue “by less than $1 billion per year.”

 

The economics are already playing out. The Hoover Institution estimates that the billionaires who left before the January 1 residency date, including Google co-founder Sergey Brin, took roughly $536 billion with them, close to 30 per cent of the tax base. It concludes the state would lose at least $25 billion over the long run once lost income tax is counted.

 

Then there’s the politics. A tax aimed at what the Legislative Analyst calls “a few hundred people” turns out to be aimed at the people best able to fight back. Brin has put more than $100 million into Building a Better California. According to state filings, that committee has reported $103.5 million against Prop 40. The yes side, funded almost entirely by one health care union, has about $33 million.

 

The most interesting move isn’t the spending, though. It’s the ballot. Brin’s group also sponsored two competing measures:

 

• Prop 41 would nullify new taxes whose revenues sit outside the state’s spending limit.
• Prop 42 would ban new state taxes on personal property and retroactive taxes.

 

Under California’s constitution, when conflicting measures pass at the same election, “the measure receiving the highest number of affirmative votes shall prevail.” The state’s own voter guide warns that if either competing measure gets more yes votes than Prop 40, the billionaire tax could be blocked even with majority support.

 

September polling by the Public Policy Institute of California had Prop 40 at 52 per cent support and Prop 42 at 54 per cent. On those numbers, the billionaire tax could win and still lose.

 

Then, on October 9, Governor Gavin Newsom, no one’s idea of a fiscal conservative, endorsed Prop 42. “We all agree that Californians deserve to have their retirement and life savings protected from new state taxes,” he said.

 

The lesson for Canadian politicians flirting with wealth taxes is simple. The people you target are few, mobile, well-advised and well-funded. They will move, restructure, litigate or outspend you, often before your tax takes effect. Even the Democratic governor of one of America’s most progressive states has concluded a wealth tax isn’t worth it.

 

California votes November 3. Whatever the result, the billionaires who left aren’t coming back.

 

Bonus Comment – From Richard Branson – British Entrepreneur – About Keeping Good People

 

“Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to.”

 

Exactly. Leaders, make the exit door wide open, and make the room worth staying in.

 

I hope today’s newsletter has been thought-provoking for you.

 

As many of you know, I’m passionate about helping people make better decisions – whether in tax, leadership, or business. If you’d like to go deeper on those topics, my recently released book, Making Life Less Taxing Version Two is now available and expands on many of the practical ideas I’ve written about over the years.

 

I’m also putting the finishing touches on my next book, Leadership Compounds: How Small Decisions Build Culture, Credibility, and Legacy. It explores a simple but powerful idea: leadership isn’t about grand gestures – it’s about the small, consistent decisions that compound over time.

 

For those interested in a more hands-on approach, I’ll soon be announcing a bespoke consulting initiative – The Acorn Growth Program – designed to help leaders and organizations grow intentionally, one small (but important) decision at a time. Feel free to reach out to me directly for more information.

 

And if you’re not already on my mailing list, feel free to sign up for my In the Mood Network newsletters to receive more content. No fluff – just practical insights on tax, leadership, and economic policy.

 

Thanks for reading. As always, I welcome your thoughts and feedback.

 

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