Income taxes are passed to consumers in the same way. All such taxes are business taxes. Carbon taxes are only passed on if the same amount of carbon is used. That's the point. Yard and home workers will only have their income reduced if families making over $250,000 see more utility in watching their kids or cutting their grass than in investing funds in the stock market or other savings vehicles - or in eating out more. Given the fact that the market has declined only 54% of its total value (the tech boom was more and the Great Depression was 89%), it would seem that most wealthy people will pay someone to cut their grass. I think we have arrived at the REAL ISSUE and your desire to remain anonymous. You are not really worried about the gardners and housekeepers, but about the commissions lost to brokers who will be paying taxes with the money brokers want to be paid to play with. An analogous situation was the Social Security Personal Accounts movement, which would not have done the middle class much good, but would have been a bonanza for the brokerage industry. Is anyone in California building houses? For those that are, are tax benefits really an issue preventing buying a bigger house? I doubt it.