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CLT UPDATE
Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Too little too late, but we'll take it without thanks


For the first time in 10 years, the state income tax in Massachusetts is set to be cut on Jan. 1.

But don't get too excited about the extra money that will stay in your pocket next year. The reduction is scheduled to be so minuscule that the savings might be only $9 to $39 a year for typical taxpayers, according to the state Department of Revenue.

Under a state law, the state's 5.3-percent personal income tax is set to drop to 5.25 percent on Jan. 1. It would be the first cut in the income tax since January 2002, when it fell to its current level under a ballot question approved by voters in 2000....

When state legislators approved the 2002 law, it negated a voter-approved ballot law in 2000 that set a phased cut in the then-5.85 percent income tax to 5 percent by January 2003. The phased cut was stopped dead in its tracks in the 2002 law.

Barbara C. Anderson, executive director of Citizens for Limited Taxation, said she welcomed the tiny cut in the income tax – on principle. The cut shows the income tax is moving in the right direction and that legislators are showing some respect to voters, she said.

"I don't care if it's 5 cents," Anderson said. "I want it."

Anderson's group sponsored the 2000 ballot question, which was approved by 59 percent of voters.

The Springfield Republican
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Massachusetts income tax cut a tiny one triggered by economic growth


Massachusetts taxpayers appear set to receive an automatic, though slight, cut in their state income taxes on Jan. 1, revenue officials said Monday. It would be the first such reduction in the tax rate since it was frozen nearly a decade ago.

The cut, from 5.3 percent to 5.25 percent, would be triggered by a sustained period of growth in tax revenue during the last year and a half....

The savings for the typical taxpayer would be small -- a family with $50,000 in taxable income would save about $25, for example -- but many fiscal observers still viewed it as a positive development for the state economy....

Massachusetts voters approved a ballot question in 2000 to gradually lower the state income tax from 5.95 percent to 5 percent. Two years later, the Legislature froze the rate at 5.3 percent, while also adding a mechanism that would allow the rate to fall if growth in annual revenues meets certain benchmarks.

Associated Press
Monday, December 12, 2011
Mass. taxpayers in line for slight income tax cut


What the three officials heard at Monday’s hearing were stark warnings that, even with an expected uptick in tax collections ranging from 2.7 percent to 4.1 percent next fiscal year, required spending on “non-discretionary” items like Medicaid, pension obligations and debt service will swallow up all of the growth....

The officials also indicated they’re anticipating an automatic income tax cut for Massachusetts residents beginning Jan. 1, triggered by sharp revenue increases over the last year. The cut, which will bring the tax rate to 5.25 percent from 5.3 percent, falls far short of a voter-approved measure that called for reducing the rate to 5 percent, but it would still result in $111 million to $117 million in tax relief in fiscal 2013, revenue officials said.

State House News Service
Monday, December 12, 2011
Slower job growth, Europe, Fed cuts seen as threat to tax receipts


It almost seems too good to be true — that taxpayers will actually get a break from the state in the coming year. But then, of course, we’ve all been waiting for it since, well, 2000....

Massachusetts voters gave themselves a tax cut (back down to 5 percent) at the ballot box in 2000. But legislators, of course, knew better how to spend our money so in 2002 they came up with a scheme to keep the rate at 5.3 percent but put in some economic triggers that could eventually lower it (in increments of .05 percent) to what voters wanted in the first place.

Frankly we thought it would never happen. It’s so very easy to be a cynic here about tax cuts and legislative sleight of hand. But even Revenue Commissioner Amy Pitter acknowledged yesterday that this tax cut looks like a done deal — thus “lowering” state revenue collections. (We love the way state officials always make that sound like a bad thing.) ...

A Boston Herald editorial
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Happy New Year indeed


Chip Ford's CLT Commentary

Last summer, after the close of Fiscal Year 2011, Statehouse reporter Dan Ring of Springfield's daily newspaper, The Republican, wrote ("Massachusetts brings in $723 million more in taxes than projected," July 19):

Tax collections for the recent fiscal year in Massachusetts rose $723 million more than projected and nearly $2 billion more than the prior year, reflecting a “noticeably stronger” economy and most likely assuring a sales tax holiday in August, the state Department of Revenue and a top legislator said.

The robust collections could also mean that people will receive a small cut in the state income tax in January, in what would be the first cut in the income tax in a decade....

Revenue Commissioner Navjeet K. Bal said that the state collected $20.5 billion in taxes for the fiscal year that ended June 30, an increase of more than $1.9 billion or 10.6 percent from the prior year and $723 million more than projections.

“The increase of nearly $2 billion in collections reflects a Massachusetts economy that grew noticeably stronger over the past 12 months,” Bal said in a statement.

The total was close to the $20.8 billion received for the fiscal year that ended in June 2008, the most-ever taxes collected by the state, said a spokesman for the revenue department. Tax collections plunged by about $2.5 billion the following year during the recession.

From all indications and reports so far, it appears that we worker drones of Massachusetts are about to receive a miniscule installment of the voters' long-overdue income tax rollback. This is the first reduction in nine years, since the Legislature gave voters and taxpayers the middle-finger Beacon Hill salute in 2002.

As Barbara said, "I don't care if it's 5 cents. I want it."

You might remember that the income tax rate was raised "temporarily, for 18-months" in 1989 twenty-two years ago from its historic 5 percent. You might also recall that CLT put the rollback of the "temporary" income tax hike on the 2000 ballot — eleven years after it was imposed "temporarily" — where it won with 60 percent of the vote statewide.

See
Was it a promise, or wasn't it?
News accounts of the treacherous 1989 "temporary — 18-months" tax hike

The Legislature "froze" the voters' mandate in 2002 at 5.3 percent with a promise to lower it more — when fiscal conditions improved and certain economic "triggers" were met.

Conditions apparently never improved sufficiently, triggers were never pulled, the rate remains at 5.3 percent where it was when the Legislature "froze" it — nine years ago. It has yet to budge.

But it's expected to finally nudge downward — a whole five one-hundredths of one percent — on January 1st. Apparently that light trigger pull is unavoidable, and has value by providing a certain if minimal amount of political cover.

At this rate — a .05% decrease each nine years — the voters' 2000 mandate might finally be accomplished, the 5 percent historic rate might eventually be reached — forty-five years from now, in the year 2057.

Will any of us be alive to see it?

Let this definition of a "temporary tax hike" be duly noted in the annals of Massachusetts government doublespeak:  It translates into sixty-eight years, if we're lucky.

Unless we elect legislators and governors sooner who will respect and appreciate taxpayers, voters, and binding ballot question results.

Chip Ford

With ever-increasing government spending, the numbers have become incomprehensibly huge, requiring new terminology (trillions) and impossibly abstract conceptions.  Consider the federal debt, $14 trillion:

$14,000,000,000,000

Or even the state’s FY 2012 budget which the governor signed in July, $30.6 billion:

$30,600,000,000

And when government cuts taxes, the number is incomprehensibly miniscule, also requiring new terminology (hundredths of a percent) and impossibly abstract conceptions. Consider the state’s barely measurable proposed income tax reduction, five one-hundredths of one percent:

.05%

Note 1:  The FY 1990 state budget that required the “temporary 18-month” income tax increase in 1989 to balance was $12.2 billion. This fiscal year’s budget – twenty-two years later – has grown larger by $18.4 billion:

$18,400,000,000

Note 2:  When the income tax was increased in 1989, “temporarily, for 18-months,” it was abruptly hiked by 15 whole percent in a single jolt.
 

The Massachusetts "Temporary" Income Tax Hike Lie
Two-Plus Decades and Counting of a Broken Promise
     
1989 Jul. 26, 1989

Gov. Michael Dukakis signs "18-month temporary" income tax hike into law, raising the 5% rate by 15% to 5.75%.
  Dec. 6, 1989

CLT files sufficient signatures for ballot question to roll back income tax rate and fee increases to 1988 levels.

1990 Jul. 20, 1990

Income tax rate raised to 6.25% immediately and will remain there through 1991, when it is scheduled to drop to a permanent 5.95% thereafter.

  Nov. 6, 1990 CLT ballot Question 3 to cut income tax and fees is defeated by vote of 60%-40%.
1992 Jan. 1, 1992

Income tax rate drops by .3%, from 6.25% to 5.95%.

1998 May 4, 1998

CLT income tax rollback petition blocked by teachers union. After lengthy challenge court rules signatures 26 shy of required 64,928.

2000 Jan 1, 2000

With second CLT rollback petition heading for the November ballot, income tax rate is dropped from 5.95% to 5.85%.

  Nov. 7, 2000

Second rollback petition drive/ballot question wins by 60%-40% vote: "Temporary" income tax hike to be rolled back from 5.85% to 5% over three years.

2002 Jul. 19, 2002

Legislature "temporarily freezes" voters' income tax rollback mandate at 5.3%.

2012 Jan. 1, 2012

5.3% income tax rate set to drop .05% to 5.25%.

2057 Jan 1, 2057 Projected date, at a reduction of .05% each 9-year period, when the 1989 "temporary" income tax hike is finally restored to its historic 5% rate.
     

 

The Springfield Republican
Sunday, December 11, 2011

Massachusetts income tax cut a tiny one triggered by economic growth
By Dan Ring


For the first time in 10 years, the state income tax in Massachusetts is set to be cut on Jan. 1.

But don't get too excited about the extra money that will stay in your pocket next year. The reduction is scheduled to be so minuscule that the savings might be only $9 to $39 a year for typical taxpayers, according to the state Department of Revenue.

Under a state law, the state's 5.3-percent personal income tax is set to drop to 5.25 percent on Jan. 1. It would be the first cut in the income tax since January 2002, when it fell to its current level under a ballot question approved by voters in 2000.

While an official announcement is expected Thursday, the reduction of 0.05 percentage points appears assured because it has already cleared several economic thresholds in the law for triggering the cut. In order to go into effect on Jan. 1, the reduction needs to pass one more modest test for measuring economic growth, according to a top legislator.

"I'm very confident it will happen," said Sen. Stephen M. Brewer, a Barre Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee. "That's good news for the taxpayer."

The tax cut would cost state government $114 million for a full fiscal year, or $54 million for the last six months of this fiscal year, according to the revenue department.

Brewer said state government could use the money, but "it's important to keep our word to taxpayers."

The cut stems from 2002, when legislators approved a law to freeze the state income tax at 5.3 percent to help deal with a recession and a gap in the state budget. At the same time, legislators established a schedule for the income tax to gradually be lowered to 5 percent in increments of 0.05 percentage points.

The reduction is determined by a calculation for determining if the economy is in good health. Under the law, the phased reduction could have started as early as 2009, but the recession killed that possibility – until this year.

Robert R. Bliss, a spokesman for the state Department of Revenue, said that the law requires a cut in the income tax if inflation-adjusted growth in tax revenues exceeds 2.5 percent for the fiscal year that ended on June 30. The commissioner of the revenue department on Aug. 30 determined that growth exploded to 7.2 percent over the prior year, well above the 2.5 percent.

Also, under the law, the inflation-adjusted growth in tax revenues must be more than zero for each consecutive three-month period between August and December of this year compared to the same period in the prior year, according to Bliss.

The cut cleared those hurdles in September, October and last month. Now, all that remains is for the revenue commissioner to certify Thursday that revenue growth was greater than zero for the past three months. If that happens, the cut will automatically occur for the new tax year.

Alexandra Zaroulis, a fiscal spokeswoman for Gov. Deval L. Patrick, said the cut in the income tax "does appear more likely than not" to take effect on Jan. 1.

The cut won't exactly be a windfall for workers.

According to the revenue department, the cut would save $39 for a married couple filing jointly who own a home, have two children less than 12 years old and $100,000 in income.

The savings would be $24 for a married couple filing jointly who own a home, have no children, and $60,000 income.

The savings is only $9 for a single person with two children who rents and makes $40,000.

When state legislators approved the 2002 law, it negated a voter-approved ballot law in 2000 that set a phased cut in the then-5.85 percent income tax to 5 percent by January 2003. The phased cut was stopped dead in its tracks in the 2002 law.

Barbara C. Anderson, executive director of Citizens for Limited Taxation, said she welcomed the tiny cut in the income tax – on principle. The cut shows the income tax is moving in the right direction and that legislators are showing some respect to voters, she said.

"I don't care if it's 5 cents," Anderson said. "I want it."

Anderson's group sponsored the 2000 ballot question, which was approved by 59 percent of voters.

Alex Sherman, chairman of the Springfield Republican City Committee, said that the reduction to 5.25 percent is a step in the right direction but not enough considering approval of the 2000 ballot question. "Eleven years and still the people's voice continues to fall deaf on the ears of our state government," Sherman said in an e-mail.

Before the income tax was eligible to start falling, the 2002 law first called for restoring personal exemptions, or the amount of income not subject to taxation.

In the 2002 tax-increase law, legislators also raised revenues by lowering personal exemptions by 25 percent.

The 2002 law also contained triggers to lift the personal exemptions in annual stages if the economy grew enough. The exemptions were fully restored in 2008.


Associated Press
Monday, December 12, 2011

Mass. taxpayers in line for slight income tax cut
By Bob Salsberg


Massachusetts taxpayers appear set to receive an automatic, though slight, cut in their state income taxes on Jan. 1, revenue officials said Monday. It would be the first such reduction in the tax rate since it was frozen nearly a decade ago.

The cut, from 5.3 percent to 5.25 percent, would be triggered by a sustained period of growth in tax revenue during the last year and a half. Massachusetts Revenue Commissioner Amy Pitter told lawmakers Monday that a final determination on the tax cut would be made Thursday after collections for the past three months are reviewed, but added that officials had already factored the anticipated reduction into revenue forecasts for the remainder of the current fiscal year and for the next one.

The savings for the typical taxpayer would be small -- a family with $50,000 in taxable income would save about $25, for example -- but many fiscal observers still viewed it as a positive development for the state economy.

"It's a tiny amount, but it's in the right direction," said Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a nonpartisan budget watchdog group.

Pitter said the revenue impact of the tax cut is expected to be about $54 million in the current fiscal year and about $114 million in the next fiscal year that begins on July 1, 2012.

Massachusetts voters approved a ballot question in 2000 to gradually lower the state income tax from 5.95 percent to 5 percent. Two years later, the Legislature froze the rate at 5.3 percent, while also adding a mechanism that would allow the rate to fall if growth in annual revenues meets certain benchmarks.

The first test was passed in the fiscal year ending June 30, Pitter said, when inflation-adjusted revenue grew by more than 2.5 percent over the previous year. The second threshold, which also appeared to have been met, requires revenues to show some continued increase from August through November compared to the same period a year earlier.

"I think it's a positive sign to the citizens that, 'Hey, it was going to be triggered at some point,' and there won't be in my estimate an attempt to reverse that," said Widmer.

Fiscal experts including Widmer were quick to point out that while the state's modest economic recovery is causing tax revenue to grow at a higher clip, Massachusetts is still taking in less in total taxes than it did prior to the Great Recession. The state is forecast to collect $700 million less in taxes in fiscal 2012 than it did in fiscal 2008.

Monday's hearing at the Statehouse was called as part of an effort to arrive at a consensus revenue estimate to guide lawmakers and Gov. Deval Patrick's administration in constructing a state budget for the next fiscal year.

In her testimony, Pitter projected that fiscal 2013 revenues would increase $560 million to $683 million over fiscal 2012, a growth rate of 2.7 percent to 3.2 percent.

The taxpayers foundation forecast revenues to increase 3.9 percent, or $822 million, while another independent research group, the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University, came in with a slightly more optimistic projection of 4.1 percent growth over the current fiscal year.

All of the estimates call for a slower rate of growth from a year ago.

Lawmakers and administration officials were also frequently reminded that the forecasts are only projections and that Massachusetts remains vulnerable to a host of economic factors that are slowing the recovery worldwide.

"Uncertainty over federal policies, the immense overhang of federal debt and the sovereign debt crisis in Europe will combine to dampen further growth of the U.S. economy and, with it, the economy of Massachusetts, said economist David Tuerck, who heads the Beacon Hill Institute.


State House News Service
Monday, December 12, 2011

Slower job growth, Europe, Fed cuts seen as threat to tax receipts
By Kyle Cheney


Employment growth in Massachusetts will largely stagnate over the next 18 months, sharply slowing the state’s recovery from a recession, state revenue officials projected Monday.

Although job growth in Massachusetts will exceed the national rate, according to Revenue Commissioner Amy Pitter, slowing job growth adds to a litany of economic headwinds facing Gov. Deval Patrick and legislative leaders.

Stalled job growth could also portend enormous political challenges for incumbents in a 2012 election year in which lawmakers will seek new two-year terms based largely on promises they made to reverse years of surging unemployment.

The Department of Revenue disclosed its job projections at an annual hearing convened by finance officials in the Patrick administration and Legislature. Pitter, the revenue commissioner, estimated that in the fiscal year that begins next July, Massachusetts will see employment increase between 0.2 percent and 0.9 percent, a relatively stagnant rate of growth.

In addition, Pitter warned that ongoing fiscal turmoil in Europe, federal spending cuts and their impact on the Bay State economy are clouding the economic crystal ball that officials rely on to make tax collection assumptions needed to build next year’s state budget.

“In this environment, tax revenue forecasting continues to be a difficult and a challenging task all across the country and at the federal level” she said.

Pitter’s testimony was backed up by a panel of economic observers, who warned lawmakers that trillions of dollars in spending cuts triggered by Congress’s inability to forge a debt reduction deal would disproportionately tag Massachusetts with losses in federal research grants and defense contracts. In addition, one public policy professor contended that an ongoing fiscal crisis in Europe could particularly harm the state’s export industry, lessening demand from Massachusetts’s European trading partners and strengthening the U.S. dollar which would make American exports less attractive.

Rep. Brian Dempsey, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, labeled the challenges a “triple threat” as the Patrick administration and lawmakers lay the groundwork for next year’s state budget, due to be enacted by July 1, the start of fiscal year 2013. Based in part on testimony from the hearing, Dempsey will join his Senate counterpart, Sen. Stephen Brewer, and the governor’s top finance adviser, Jay Gonzalez, to agree on the amount of taxes Massachusetts can rely upon to build the fiscal 2013 budget.

What the three officials heard at Monday’s hearing were stark warnings that, even with an expected uptick in tax collections ranging from 2.7 percent to 4.1 percent next fiscal year, required spending on “non-discretionary” items like Medicaid, pension obligations and debt service will swallow up all of the growth.

“Left unchecked, cost growth in non-discretionary spending will likely outpace new revenue,” Brewer said.

The news left Gonzalez, the secretary of administration and finance, and Brewer foreshadowing another year of budget cuts to discretionary budget programs and, potentially, state aid to cities and towns.

“It is difficult to see 2013 not requiring additional ‘budget cuts,’” said Brewer at the outset of the hearing.

The officials also indicated they’re anticipating an automatic income tax cut for Massachusetts residents beginning Jan. 1, triggered by sharp revenue increases over the last year. The cut, which will bring the tax rate to 5.25 percent from 5.3 percent, falls far short of a voter-approved measure that called for reducing the rate to 5 percent, but it would still result in $111 million to $117 million in tax relief in fiscal 2013, revenue officials said.

EXPERT ADVICE

The hearing included more than an hour of testimony from expert panels that sized up the economic challenges facing the state.

Barry Bluestone, a Northeastern University public policy expert, immediately noted what others had hinted at during the four-hour hearing: the experts often get it wrong.

“You should worry about any forecast you hear from any of us,” he said, noting that projections of tax collections and the economic factors that will influence them have been off the mark in recent years. “I think we are approaching a new normal. Being able to think about the future the way we thought about the past is going to be very difficult to do, particularly given all of what you heard here.”

Christian Weller, a public policy professor from UMass Boston, said he doesn’t anticipate Massachusetts households approaching a “sustainable level of debt” until 2016, when he said consumer demand would pick up substantially.

“We have certainly avoided another recession, which we were worried about earlier in the year,” he said. “We definitely need more policy attention to the short-term.”

Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, estimated that the state would add a negligible number of jobs over the next fiscal year. An uptick in income tax collections would occur, he added, largely because of anticipated increases in wages and salaries.

Although several of the experts projected increases in the amount of capital gains taxes – revenue drawn from investment income – recent policy enacted by the governor and lawmakers prohibits relying on more than $1 billion in capital gains revenue in any particular budget year. The remainder must be deposited in the state’s rainy day account.

Gonzalez, Dempsey and Brewer all discussed replenishing that account, which peaked at $2.3 billion in 2008 before the state relied on the account – along with billions of dollars in federal stimulus aid – to stave off deep budget cuts. However, Gonzalez told reporters after the hearing that he doesn’t envision next year as the year to begin rebuilding the fund, whose balance sits at about $1.5 billion after recent deposits authorized by lawmakers and the governor.

Gonzalez said he anticipates a “modest rainy day fund draw” next fiscal year because the state is “not yet at full recovery.”

He also declined to indicate whether the governor will offer any proposals to curtail tax breaks for certain industries, programs or services, a change some lawmakers said they would consider as part of next year’s budget. Rep. Ruth Balser (D-Newton) wondered whether “some people have been getting an unfair advantage” as a result of long-standing tax breaks that no longer serve their original public purpose.

Gonzalez added that all options to balance next year’s budget should be on the table, including cuts to local aid for municipalities.

“I can’t make any commitments with respect to local aid,” he said, declining to estimate what the total gap between spending pressure and anticipated revenue is expected to be.

After the hearing, Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr said the revenue hearing would reinforce Republican efforts to “propose specific and decisive actions in January that will respond to the need to get people back to work in our state.”

“The testimony that we heard today proves that we must intensify our efforts to seek reforms, identify efficiencies and create a better business climate in Massachusetts,” Tarr said in a statement. “If anything, the economic forecast reinforces the need to continue focusing on achieving savings, setting spending priorities and creating jobs.”

About $1.5 trillion in cuts are slated to be implemented over the next decade as a result of Congress’s inability to reach consensus on a debt reduction deal through a process known as sequestration. Defense appropriations are also slated to be included among those cuts. But not everyone is convinced that the federal government will follow through with the trillions of dollars in cuts expected to be triggered next year, including at least one member of the Bay State’s Congressional delegation.

“I don’t think they will,” said U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, a Springfield Democrat, at a Monday morning function in Boston’s financial district. “I think it’s a good backdrop because of the threat that’s involved … Sequestration’s a lousy way to run the government, but the threat of sequestration might break the logjam.”

BY THE NUMBERS

Lawmakers and Gonzalez received four estimates of potential tax receipts for fiscal 2013, all anticipating modest growth from the state’s current revenue estimate, which was revised upwards in October:

  The Department of Revenue estimated the state would see tax collections grow 2.7 percent to 3.2 percent next fiscal year;

  Northeastern University economist Alan Clayton-Matthews predicted 2.9 percent growth;

  Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, estimated 3.9 percent growth; and,

  David Tuerck, head of the Beacon Hill Institute, estimated 4.1 percent growth.

All but Widmer estimated a revenue slowdown in fiscal 2013 from the current fiscal year.

TREASURY REPORT

Treasurer Steven Grossman said the state Lottery, which he oversees, would likely reap $905 million in profit this fiscal year – nearly all of which supports aid to cities and towns. In fiscal 2013, he said, profits would remain largely flat unless the Legislature increases funding for the Lottery advertising budget.

If the agency’s advertising budget is increased to $5 million – up from $2 million – profits would increase to about $916 million, he said, adding that the bump in advertising revenue would be a trial run to see whether it generates additional profits. If it works, he said, the Lottery might seek a larger advertising budget in fiscal 2014.

“If it didn’t succeed,” he said, “we’ll be happy to fold our tent, go home, and ask for less.”

Grossman said his office is eyeing putting “player-activated” Lottery terminals at Logan Airport and in retail stores. He said the Lottery also plans to roll out a new game, Lucky for Life, that he said would replace Cash WinFall, a game that generated controversy when it was discovered that certain players found a way to guarantee substantial winnings.

Grossman added that he was unsettled last year when members of then-Treasurer Tim Cahill’s team surprised lawmakers with an announcement that they expected a decline in state Lottery revenues. Grossman pledged to deliver a monthly letter to legislative leaders and the Patrick administration about the Lottery’s performance.

Grossman added that a task force on “online gaming” would begin meeting “as soon as we get some representation from the speaker, the Senate president and the minority leaders of both bodies.” He said the task force would hear testimony from experts about online poker or lottery games and other forms of internet gambling.

“I think we have to attract a new generation of people, of customers,” he said.

Grossman said he expected the task force to begin meeting early next year. Grossman also said he anticipates seeking a “new generation” of Lottery equipment during next year’s budget process, estimating that he may seek $50 million for that equipment.

Sen. Patricia Jehlen (D-Somerville) wondered whether the focus on maximizing lottery revenue was to the detriment of other areas of the economy.

“Right now, it’s almost $700 per man, woman and child in the commonwealth,” she said.

Grossman described himself as “libertarian” on the issue.

“I think that people have a right to spend their money the way they want. They will whether I lecture them or not,” he said. “I want people to gamble responsibly always, and some people would say there’s a certain oxymoronic concept to that. I also want to let people spend their money the way they want. They will anyhow.”

Jim Lamenzo, an actuary with the Public Employee Retirement Administration Commission, said pension officials are eyeing the prospect of lowering the expectations for the long-term return on investment for the state’s $50 billion pension fund.

Fund overseers are legally required to seek 8.25 percent returns, but Lamenzo said he’d prefer to reduce that to 8 percent. He called 8.25 percent “a tad high” but noted that reducing the assumption would add hundreds of millions of dollars to the state’s unfunded pension liability.

“In a perfect world, I think we try to move toward 8 percent,” he said.


The Boston Herald
Tuesday, December 13, 2011

A Boston Herald editorial
Happy New Year indeed


It almost seems too good to be true — that taxpayers will actually get a break from the state in the coming year. But then, of course, we’ve all been waiting for it since, well, 2000.

Senate Ways and Means Chairman Stephen Brewer confirmed yesterday that it looks like the state income tax will drop on Jan. 1 from the current 5.3 percent to 5.25 percent. That will put between $111 million and $117 million back in the pockets of taxpayers in calendar 2012.

Massachusetts voters gave themselves a tax cut (back down to 5 percent) at the ballot box in 2000. But legislators, of course, knew better how to spend our money so in 2002 they came up with a scheme to keep the rate at 5.3 percent but put in some economic triggers that could eventually lower it (in increments of .05 percent) to what voters wanted in the first place.

Frankly we thought it would never happen. It’s so very easy to be a cynic here about tax cuts and legislative sleight of hand. But even Revenue Commissioner Amy Pitter acknowledged yesterday that this tax cut looks like a done deal — thus “lowering” state revenue collections. (We love the way state officials always make that sound like a bad thing.)

And even with sluggish job growth and a not-exactly perking along economy, state revenues for fiscal 2013 (beginning July 1, 2012), are likely to increase by around 3.9 percent, according to the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. The so-called science of revenue estimating has become a pet peeve of Senate President Therese Murray, who’d actually like to see a little more historical analysis than the usual annual educated guesstimates. And she’s right on that score.

But come New Year’s Day it’s at least nice to know the taxpayers will have something to celebrate.

 

NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml


Citizens for Limited Taxation    PO Box 1147    Marblehead, MA 01945    508-915-3665