Tax Law and Policy

“Our view was that billionaires are not going to miss the money,” according to Professor Brian Galle of U.C. Berkeley law school.

Brian Galle, a UC Berkeley tax law professor and co-author of the billionaire tax, called Saez “one of the real geniuses of our time.” It’s not just that Saez has won a John Bates Clark Medal, the most prestigious economic laurel not named the Nobel Prize. Working with him, Galle said, “can sometimes feel like the tax-policy equivalent of a 10-day-contract guy trading passes with LeBron James.”

Brian Galle, a UC Berkeley School of Law professor who teaches courses on taxation and nonprofit organizations, has overseen two projects designed to reign in the power of the ultrarich.

Professor Brian Galle joins KALW’s State of the Bay to discuss a proposed one-time wealth tax on California’s billionaires.

The reduction in billionaire wealth growth might be “worth somebody’s time to march against,” said Professor Brian Galle, “but for me, it’s something I would march in favor of.”

Brian Galle is not looking to ban billionaires. In fact, the tax law expert and key architect behind California’s controversial wealth tax proposal described himself as an “enthusiastic capitalist.” “I think capitalism is a great system that probably has, you know, enriched the lives of billions of people,” he told Fortune from his office in Berkeley, where he teaches courses on tax and nonprofit law. “But I’m not sure that our system is a functioning capitalist system right now.

“We see a lot of cheap talk from billionaires,” said UC Berkeley law professor Brian Galle, who helped write the proposal. “Some people do actually leave and change their behavior, but the vast bulk of wealthy people don’t, because it doesn’t make sense.”

UC Berkeley law professor Brian Galle, who is advising the campaign, argues the tax could help offset California’s budget deficit and rising health care costs, in part fueled by federal government cuts. “The bigger hit to California’s economy is if we can’t cover that sharp spike in health care costs. That’s what’s going to stop the next generation of startups.”

“Replace the corporate income tax with non-voting shares that corporations would issue to the fund,” writes UC Berkeley Law Professor Mark P. Gergen and Stanford Law School Professor Joseph Bankman.