Billionaires like Bill Gates have long said that they, theoretically, would be in favor of paying much more money in personal taxes.

And yet Gates and some of the wealthiest people in the world are staying silent on a series of active proposals that would do just that, sidestepping a legislative package in their home state of Washington that targets them specifically.

Washington is home to four of the richest people on the planet: Gates, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Bezos's ex-wife novelist MacKenzie Scott, and longtime Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. And the state in 2021 is also home to some of the most aggressive proposals to tax the ultra-rich, including a first-of-its-kind proposal to tax the wealth of billionaires at the state level.

All four of them have declined to campaign for the tax increase proposals, spurning requests to back the measures and staying on the sidelines.