Billionaires Flee to Tax Haven Just Across the California Border

**SPEAKER_1** (0:02)
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio, News.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:08)
You're listening to Bloomberg Businessweek with Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec on Bloomberg Radio.

**Tim Stenovec** (0:14)
It is today's big take, it's one of the most read stories on the Bloomberg terminal. It's a Bloomberg exclusive about the billionaires who are fleeing to a tax haven just across the California border. We're talking about Incline Village in Nevada. It's a haven for wealth and Silicon Valley elite, thanks to its beauty, its group of elite neighbors. Most critically, no income taxes.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:34)
Win-win.

**Tim Stenovec** (0:35)
I mean, it depends, right? It depends.
Eliyahu Kamisher is Bloomberg News California reporter. He joins us from our San Francisco Bureau. Eliyahu, good to have you back on the program. I mean, we're talking about a beautiful, beautiful part of California, Nevada. I mean, this is the Lake Tahoe area. It's just absolutely gorgeous in the winter, in the spring, in the summer, and in the fall, we're showing pictures of it on YouTube and Bloomberg Originals.

**Carol Massar** (1:02)
We just flew over it.

**Tim Stenovec** (1:04)
Yeah, we just flew over it, that's right. What's going on there in these multi, like more than $100 million price tags that we're seeing on some estates?

**Eliyahu Kamisher** (1:16)
Yeah, it's really interesting. The divide between, Lake Tahoe is bisected. Half of it's California, half is Nevada. And if you go to the Nevada side, you can save a lot of money on taxes. And there's one town on the Nevada side, it's called Inclined Village, and it's kind of become the trophy town. There is a strip there, it's like a billionaire's row, where you have estates of Larry Ellison, Steve Jurvetson, he's an early SpaceX backer, just paid $125 million also for an estate there, and nearby Sergey Brin also bought a mansion.
So, there's a lot of beauty there, but really the Nevada address is what drives a premium, because you can get a mansion on the California side, but it can be half the price for the same property, some realtors have told me.

**Carol Massar** (2:10)
You mentioned some of the well-known homeowners, billionaires, wealthy investors, and all of a sudden what they're seeing, increased demand for homes there?

**Eliyahu Kamisher** (2:21)
Yeah, they're seeing this flood of tech wealth. Sergey Brin was the first to buy in, and there's a few things going on. One, you have a California billionaire tax that is being proposed that could be on the ballot in November, so some people are trying to get out of California before that.
Then you also have this mega wealth events that are happening. You have the IPOs of SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic, and so some people are trying to kind of leave the state before they potentially vest kind of a bunch of shares and see these kind of massive windfalls and avoid a big tax bill.

**Tim Stenovec** (3:00)
There are, well go ahead Carol.

**Carol Massar** (3:01)
Can I just share one stat in your story? Sales volume for single family homes in Inclined Village in Crystal Bay surged to roughly 232 million in the first quarter compared with about 30.6 million, so about $30 million a year earlier.

**Tim Stenovec** (3:13)
A couple of big purchases to be fair.

**Carol Massar** (3:15)
I know, but still that's a big move.

**Tim Stenovec** (3:17)
It's a huge move. Something that you note too is that it's like, there are these vibes that are, areas with vibes that are known for billionaires, like Aspen Snowmass and Palm Beach for example. What are the vibes in Inclined Village?

**Eliyahu Kamisher** (3:32)
It's really interesting. If you're just driving down the town as a normal visitor, you're just gonna think this is a regular mountain town. There is a budget grocery store, there's kind of dated strip malls, and most of the kind of like, there isn't the luxury of Aspen or Palm Beach or even Malibu. So it kind of looks like a regular mountain town. But then there's these estates, they're all tucked behind driveways. They're really not visible mostly to the kind of common visitor. And they are, you know, 40, 50, and now over $100 million.
So there's kind of this juxtaposition there, where you're kind of having like, you know, a regular old mountain town, little ski shops. There isn't Gucci or Prada stores, but there's an immense amount of wealth that is now being concentrated there.

**Carol Massar** (4:24)
And there's a new restaurant offering raw amberjack with kumquat dashi. So, I mean, there's stuff coming in, right, to cater to the lux crowd, slowly.

**Eliyahu Kamisher** (4:37)
Yeah. So there is kind of this culture shift that you see happening. Yeah, there's a very nice restaurant that has a 10-course meal that is kind of bringing fine dining to Incline Village. There's a private school as well that is pretty much at capacity. And the local public school has seen a long-term decline. And that's because there's a lot of wealthy people moving in. And they want kind of high-tier education that you could get similar to what's in San Francisco.