Jun 12, 2026
Nestled along the shores of Lake Tahoe, Incline Village looks like any other picturesque mountain town — glimmering water, alpine views and a tight-knit community of about 9,300. But the quiet enclave is undergoing a transformation, and it’s being led by some of the world’s wealthiest people.
Billionaires, many of them former Californians, have begun putting down roots in the Nevada town. Long a beautiful vacation spot, Incline Village is now drawing the ultra-wealthy for a different reason: the Nevada address.
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Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison reportedly owns a sprawling wooded estate there. Just down the road, venture capitalist and SpaceX investor Steve Jurvetson has been tied to a $125 million compound that broke a regional price record. Google co-founder and former Alphabet president Sergey Brin is linked to a $42 million mansion.
“I liken it to a school of fish swimming by — you’ve got your fishing pole out in the lake and all of a sudden you get eight fish and then nothing for two years,” Tim Lampe of Lakeshore Realty told Bloomberg. “The market will pulse like that. Right now, we’re definitely on a high-end pulse. Except they’re not fish, they’re whales.”
A whale of a time
In the first quarter of 2026, single-family home sales in the area soared to roughly $232 million, compared with just $30.6 million in the first quarter of 2025.
Nevada is a no-income-tax state, and the growing popularity of Incline Village comes as California considers a new tax on billionaires.
“It’s one of the few places in the country or the world where you can lower your taxes and upgrade your lifestyle,” Tom Palecek, a founding partner of Summit Trail Advisors, which specializes in tax planning for the ultra-rich, told Bloomberg. “It’s not just tax arbitrage, it’s lifestyle arbitrage.”
The shift has also caught the attention of locals. The town has now earned the new nickname “Income Village.”
Moneywise reached out to Incline Village district chair Matthew Kent for comment, but did not receive a response by publication time.
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“When I first moved here in 1975, it was actually a lot of airline pilots that lived in Incline because they flew out of Reno. It really was affordable,” historian David Antonucci told Bloomberg. “Now the billionaires are pricing out the millionaires.”
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California’s proposed billionaire tax
California’s 2026 Billionaire Tax Act has been at the center of heated debate. The proposed measure would impose a one-time 5% wealth tax on the state’s roughly 200 billionaires and could be paid in installments of 1% over five years. The tax is expected to raise about $100 billion between 2027 and 2031. In comparison, California billionaires paid $4.1 billion in income taxes in 2025, just 0.2% of their collective $2 trillion net worth.
The tax will be voted on in the November ballot. The measure was proposed in response to the steep federal funding cuts to California’s healthcare outlined in President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill. Ninety percent of the revenue from the proposed tax would go toward healthcare.
Supporters of the tax argue it’s necessary to fill funding gaps and is justified for the ultra-wealthy to pay their fair share. Opponents, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, worry it’ll ruin the state’s competitiveness and appeal to the rich.
Billionaires opposing the tax have been given until January 1, 2026, to change residency. So far, only six billionaires have publicly announced they’re leaving, including Peter Thiel and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
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Brin has contributed $57 million to Building a Better California, a nonprofit opposing taxes on personal property. Brin has warned that the state is at risk of becoming a socialist system.
“I fled socialism with my family in 1979 and know the devastating, oppressive society it created in the Soviet Union,” Brin said in a statement to The New York Times. “I don’t want California to end up in the same place.”
Other tax havens for the wealthiest class
Nevada is welcoming a wave of billionaires, but it’s far from the only haven in the country for the ultra-wealthy.
Florida is another option for them. The state has no income tax, no estate tax and strong homestead protections. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has moved to the Sunshine State. According to the Wall Street Journal, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly paid $170 million for an under-construction mansion in Miami — one of the country’s most expensive homes.
Alaska, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Washington, Wyoming and Texas are all also no-income-tax states. Elon Musk moved his home and business from Silicon Valley to the Lone Star State for business and political reasons.
Additionally, the country’s wealthiest citizens aren’t just looking for tax havens. States like South Dakota, Nevada and Delaware also offer trust havens, allowing billionaires to park their wealth there even if they don’t live in the state. Federal taxes still apply, but the structure allows the wealthy to avoid state income taxes on trust earnings and can minimize federal estate and transfer taxes.
Whether California’s billionaire tax passes in November or not, it’s clear the ultra-wealthy aren’t waiting to find out. The migration it has sparked may already be reshaping the geography of American wealth.
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Rinna Diamantakos is an assigning editor at Moneywise.com. A versatile journalist, she has experience as a writer, editor and producer. Her work has focused on politics, business and financial news.
