To:   Members of the Massachusetts Senate

cc.    Members of the Massachusetts House

Re:   Budget amendment on income tax rollback

Contact:  Chip Faulkner, Associate Director

Citizens for Limited Taxation thanks the Massachusetts House for not passing an amendment with an income tax rate increase in the House budget. We hope the Senate will be equally respectful of the voters who mandated that the rate return to 5 percent — as we were promised when the rate was “temporarily” increased by Gov. Dukakis and the Legislature in 1989.

Through the 1990s, we urged the Legislature to keep its promise that the rate increase would be temporary. Finally, we placed a question on the 2000 ballot to roll back the rate to 5%, over three years; we called our campaign "A Promise to Keep” and voters passed it 59-41 percent.

In 2002, the Legislature “froze” the voter-mandated rate reduction and substituted a small adjustment in the income tax rate in years that a particular formula kicked in.  Over the next thirteen years the rate has sloooowly been reduced, so that it is now 5.15 percent.

While we would prefer an immediate reduction to 5 percent, we can support Senator Tarr’s amendment for a definite rate reduction to 5.1 in 2016 and, finally, 5% in 2017.