Death by taxes. This is what could happen to Los Angeles if the rich flee or stay away from the city because of the “mansion tax.” Many will be looking for greener pastures — green in the dollar.
“Shark Tank” star Barbara Corcoran agrees. TMZ caught up with the real estate mogul in New York. “People hate paying taxes on the entrances or exits of their homes,” she told the entertainment outlet. “They feel attacked, taken advantage of.”
Last November, voters passed Measure ULA, which levies a 4 percent tax on homes that sell for $5 million or more. It also imposes a 5.5 percent tax on properties that sell for more than $10 million, the New York Times reports. The tax goes into effect today — April 1st.
The money collected from the tax should fund affordable housing in LA and help alleviate the city’s homeless crisis, TMZ writes. Some predict that the aptly named “castle tax” will bring in $1 billion a year. How will these projections be fulfilled if a bunch of wealthy home seekers are fleeing the city to avoid taxes? No one wants to be a prisoner in their own home.
Corcoran agrees. “The villa tax will give people more motivation not to move out or move in.” Escaping LA will be harder and harder for the rich, and those looking to escape the self-imposed prison sentence of the tax burden will avoid the city like the plague.
It’s not that Corcoran is against helping the homeless; exactly the opposite. She believes that the affordable housing fund is “more than fair” because “it is the obligation of people with money to pay for people who don’t have money.”
“But the castle tax is the wrong way to go about it,” Corcoran continued, “it sends tax revenue out of state. In the end, nobody benefits.” The real estate market will be paralyzed and rich people will not be looking for a home in LA. They will look to cities and states with more favorable tax laws. Corcoran said she believes many will opt for southern states instead of the lost paradise of California.
They should have seen it. Beware of the Ides of March. Last month, wealthy home sellers slashed prices and made last-minute deals in LA, trying to beat the clock and offload their properties before the mansion tax kicks in, the Times reports.
The selling frenzy has brought in luxury brokers like Josh Altman, a regular on Bravo’s “Million Dollar Listing,” who is offering agents a $1 million bonus if they land a buyer for a seven-bedroom Bel Air estate priced at nearly $28 million before April 1. dollars. No wonder. The castle tax must be paid by the seller.
LA is Crazy City. But it’s not just LA
At former President Donald Trump’s recent campaign rally in Waco, Texas, rock legend Ted Nugent opened the show with a rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” on electric guitar, Newsweek reports. Some might go so far as to claim that it rivals Jimi Hendrix’s legendary performance of the same tune at Woodstock in 1969.
Same song, different views of the world. Hendrix, it’s safe to say, was not a conservative. It’s Nugent. He added a few choice words between the guitar riffs. “I’m a guitarist, I have a couple of requests. Secure my border. I have some very good ideas: give me back my taxes. I did not approve the killing of babies at Planned Parenthood… I want my money back.” Needless to say, the pro-Trump crowd cheered.
Nugent also had some colorful words for the Ukrainian war and President Zelensky, but I digress. The point is that Nugent is right to claim his tax money back. Taxes are spent on follies that many taxpayers find wasteful and repulsive.
For example, scientists from Stanford University spent almost 7 million dollars in funds to build an artificially intelligent toilet system for health studies, writes the New York Post. Researchers say your bottom has an individually identifiable “anal imprint.” Scientists have admitted that “[t]To take full advantage of a smart toilet, users have to put up with a camera that scans their anus.”
And there were some pretty crazy things hidden in the McConnell-Schumer omnibus spending bill. According to the Daily Signal, $575 million was earmarked for a global health department that allocated funds for “family planning/reproductive health, including areas where population growth threatens biodiversity or endangered species.” In other words, the plebeians are the enemies of the world and the elites must prevent them from reproducing.
It’s just the edge of the swamp. The collective bill also included:
$1.5 million to encourage people to eat outdoors in sunny Pasadena, California.
$1.1 million for a solar array in cloudy Kirkland, Washington.
$2 million to B360, a group that promotes dirt-bike culture in Baltimore.
3 million dollars for the small and remote island of St. George, Alaska, for water infrastructure and $2.5 million for harbor improvements, for a total cost of over $82,000 per resident.
$500,000 for a skate park in Rhode Island.
$4.8 million for an environmental impact report on a possible expansion of Chicago’s rail transit system. Bureaucracy at work.
$13 million to expand the airport in the small town of Abbeville, Alabama.
$4 million for “Soybean-Based Rural Road Reconstruction” in Iowa.
$2.35 million for the Leahy Center in Vermont, named for Democratic state Sen. Patrick Leahy. A member who requested a tag? Sen. Patrick Leahy.
Funding a wide range of woke organizations and leftist activists.
It’s not just LA. The madness is spreading from state to state and city to city.
Ted Nugent was right. Your government – local, state and federal – spends your tax dollars willy-nilly. Are you represented by your government officials? Or is it all just the talk of an idiot?
In California, taxes like the mansion tax scare the rich. How does wealth intimidation benefit the poor? It doesn’t add up.
Corcoran was right when she told a TMZ reporter that the mansion tax is “not good for the country.” Too many of our politicians are taking advantage of us, rich or not.
Something has to give.
This article originally appeared on The Western Journal.