 |
and the
Citizens Economic Research Foundation
Post Office Box 1147 ●
Marblehead, Massachusetts 01945 ●
(508)
915-3665
“Every Tax is a Pay Cut ... A Tax Cut is a Pay Raise”
43 years as “The Voice of Massachusetts Taxpayers”
— and
their Institutional Memory — |
|
CLT UPDATE
Tuesday, November 28, 2017
Please get your petition
receipts to us immediately!
|
Wednesday was the deadline to submit signatures for
questions to appear on the 2018 ballot. The Attorney
General’s office certified ballot questions on 18 topics
earlier this year – 17 proposed laws and one proposed
constitutional amendment. The groups behind the ballot
questions needed to collect at least 64,750 signatures by
Wednesday to proceed to the next step in the process. The
residents of any one county cannot comprise more than 25
percent of those signatures....
Clerks have until Dec. 4 to certify the signatures. The
sponsors will then submit that paperwork to the
Massachusetts Secretary of State’s office, which will
forward the petitions that qualify to the state legislature
in early January 2018.
The Legislature will have the chance to adopt the
proposed laws on its own. The groups behind any proposals
not adopted must collect another 10,792 signatures by June
2018 to place the question on the November 2018 ballot.
The 18 proposals relate to issues ranging from clean
energy, the minimum wage and taxes, to campaign finance and
the tax returns of presidential candidates, to the
well-being of whales and sea turtles.
While the fate of those ballot questions remains
uncertain, at least one proposal has already been cleared to
appear on the November 2018 ballot: a constitutional
amendment to impose an additional 4 percent tax on incomes
greater than $1 million....
A ballot question backed by the Retailers Association of
Massachusetts would reduce the sales tax from 6.25 percent
to 5 percent, and require the state to allow a tax-free
weekend every August.
The WBUR poll also found strong support for the sales tax
proposal, with 69 percent in favor and 20 percent in
opposition.
The MetroWest Daily News
Thursday, November 23, 2017
Town clerks delay holiday for 2018 ballot question deadline
Proposals to lower the sales tax, increase the minimum
wage, and require employers to offer paid medical leave
moved a step closer to next year’s ballot as backers turned
in hundreds of thousands of signatures in support of the
measures.
On Wednesday, committees supporting 20 statewide
referendums were rushing against a midnight [sic-5:00 PM]
deadline to submit the required 64,750 signatures from
voters to get on the ballot in the 2018 elections. The
petitions were submitted to city and town clerks across the
state, and must still be certified.
Backers of a proposal to cut the sales tax from 6.25
percent to 5 percent, and set a permanent tax-free weekend,
say they’ve turned in more than the required number of
petitions and expect to make next year's ballot.
"Judging by the feedback I've received from volunteers,
the voters have been very responsive," said Jon Hurst,
president of the Massachusetts Retailers Association, which
is leading the initiative. "We're going to have well over
the required number of signatures to get on the ballot."
The signature drive got a major boost from Republican
Geoff Diehl's U.S. Senate campaign, which collected about
10,000 signatures ahead of the deadline.
The Salem News
Thursday, November 23, 2017
Sales tax cut wins support as ballot campaign moves forward
Massachusetts voters appear to want to
significantly change the way the state's tax burden is
shared.
A new WBUR poll finds three proposed 2018
statewide ballot initiatives are enjoying overwhelming
support from Massachusetts voters. The live telephone poll
was conducted by the MassINC Polling Group for WBUR.
The initiatives would raise the income tax
on earnings greater than $1 million a year; lower the state
sales tax from 6.25 percent to 5 percent; and require
employers to provide paid family medical leave.
The ballot initiative adding a surtax on
income over $1 million would direct the money raised to pay
for education and transportation.
Seventy-six percent of registered voters
polled say they would "strongly or somewhat" support such a
measure. Nineteen percent say they would oppose it.
The state Department of Revenue estimates
that this so-called millionaires' tax would raise between
$1.6 billion and $2.2 billion in additional annual
revenue....
The ballot initiative to lower the state
sales tax would also create a permanent sales tax holiday
one weekend each year.
Sixty-nine percent of respondents say they
would support the initiative, while 20 percent say they
would oppose it.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman
Jeffrey Sánchez, a Boston Democrat, tells WBUR the sales tax
cut would cost the state $1.3 billion in annual revenues.
And whereas the high-income surtax is
targeted, the sales tax cut would hit across the board.
"Sales tax goes into the general fund, and we expend it
throughout the entire budget," Sánchez said.
MassINC pollster Steve Koczela sees support
for these two measures as part of a broader national
populist sentiment.
WBUR-FM 90.9
Wednesday, November 15, 2017
WBUR Poll: 3 State Ballot Initiatives Enjoy Overwhelming
Support
|
|
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
The deadline for turning in petition
signatures for certification to city and town clerks was
last Wednesday.
Clerks all around the state have until
December 4 to certify those signatures.
But petition sponsors need to deliver all
certified petitions to the Secretary of State by 5:00 PM on
December 6 — just two days
later. That's how the law is written. Nobody
said the process was convenient, or easy. Much to the
contrary in fact!
Just two days to sweep the 351 city and town
halls around the state to pick up all the petitions before
the deadline to get them into Boston.
At least one clerk's office had already
mailed all the petitions they had in their possession back
to the sponsors even before last Wednesday's deadline
— my Marblehead town clerk.
The Retailer's Association of Massachusetts had requested
they be mailed to them when the clerks completed their
certification.
When I asked why they'd already mailed them
— before even the deadline
— I was told "Some people want
them as soon as possible."
When I asked what happens to any signed
petitions that come in before last week's petitioner's
deadline for certification, or which haven't yet been
certified, I was told "the sponsors will need to send us
another letter of acknowledgement and another large
postage-paid envelope, or send someone to pick them up."
So — thanks to
the clerks' "efficiency" there are likely some
— even many
— petitions still sitting in
clerks' offices around the state after they shipped back the
bulk of them to the petitions' respective sponsors.
"'Judging by the feedback I've received from
volunteers, the voters have been very responsive,'
said Jon Hurst, president of the Massachusetts
Retailers Association, which is leading the
initiative. 'We're going to have well over the
required number of signatures to get on the
ballot.'"
That anticipated outcome depends on getting
the certified petitions from the 351 city and town clerks'
offices to the Secretary of State's office within two days.
We won't know how many petitions are
actually out there waiting to be picked up
— unless we have your
receipt(s).
So far, we've received quite a disappointing
number of receipts from CLT members.
We're hoping this means you haven't mailed
your receipts to us yet.
We're hoping more receipts are in the mail,
will arrive in the next day or two.
If you
have a petition receipt, haven't mailed it to us yet, please
do it immediately.
Citizens for Limited Taxation
PO Box 1147
Marblehead, MA 01945-5147
Thanks for your time and help with getting
the sales tax rollback on the ballot. If it makes it
onto the ballot, it looks like it'll pass. But it
needs to get there first . . .
|
 |
 |
|
Chip Ford
Executive Director |
|
|
|
|
The MetroWest Daily News
Thursday, November 23, 2017
Town clerks delay holiday for 2018 ballot
question deadline
By Jonathan Dame
FRAMINGHAM – Many cities and towns closed their
municipal offices early on Wednesday, the day
before Thanksgiving. But town and city clerks in
every Massachusetts community remained behind
their counters until 5 p.m.
Wednesday was the deadline to submit signatures
for questions to appear on the 2018 ballot. The
Attorney General’s office certified ballot
questions on 18 topics earlier this year – 17
proposed laws and one proposed constitutional
amendment.
The groups behind the ballot questions needed to
collect at least 64,750 signatures by Wednesday
to proceed to the next step in the process. The
residents of any one county cannot comprise more
than 25 percent of those signatures.
Local clerks must certify the signatures of the
registered voters in their communities. That is,
the signatures of Milford residents are
submitted to the Milford town clerk – and so on.
The town clerk’s office in Framingham received
hundreds of signature sheets. Clerk Valerie
Mulvey and her staff have started sorting
through the documents with a red pen, crossing
out empty lines and putting check marks next to
certified voters.
“The stacks are huge,” Mulvey said. “But that’s
OK. That’s what we do here, that’s our job,
happy to do it.”
“I went home last night with red fingers,
literally.”
Clerks have until Dec. 4 to certify the
signatures. The sponsors will then submit that
paperwork to the Massachusetts Secretary of
State’s office, which will forward the petitions
that qualify to the state legislature in early
January 2018.
The Legislature will have the chance to adopt
the proposed laws on its own. The groups behind
any proposals not adopted must collect another
10,792 signatures by June 2018 to place the
question on the November 2018 ballot.
The 18 proposals relate to issues ranging from
clean energy, the minimum wage and taxes, to
campaign finance and the tax returns of
presidential candidates, to the well-being of
whales and sea turtles.
While the fate of those ballot questions remains
uncertain, at least one proposal has already
been cleared to appear on the November 2018
ballot: a constitutional amendment to impose an
additional 4 percent tax on incomes greater than
$1 million.
The revenue generated from the surcharge could
only be used to fund public schools, make public
higher education more affordable, and improve
transportation infrastructure.
Raise Up Massachusetts proposed the millionaires
tax in 2015, collecting enough signatures to put
it before the state legislature, which endorsed
the proposal in two successive years. A group of
industry and advocacy organizations, however,
recently sued in an attempt to block the
initiative.
Raise Up Massachusetts is advancing two
additional ballot questions this cycle. One
would incrementally raise the minimum wage from
$11 an hour to $15 an hour by 2022, thereafter
tying it to inflation; the other would create an
insurance program that would guarantee employees
get paid family and medical leave.
The group says it submitted a combined 271,521
signatures between the two proposals, more than
twice what was needed for each. A WBUR poll this
month found 82 percent of registered voters
would support a law requiring paid leave.
“We did it entirely through a grassroots
operation,” said Raise Up Massachusetts
spokesperson Steve Crawford. “We did it one
person at a time. It’s a great way to do it and
it’s a great way to build support across the
state.”
A ballot question backed by the Retailers
Association of Massachusetts would reduce the
sales tax from 6.25 percent to 5 percent, and
require the state to allow a tax-free weekend
every August.
The WBUR poll also found strong support for the
sales tax proposal, with 69 percent in favor and
20 percent in opposition.
Some of the other ballot questions certified by
the Attorney General’s office include:
● A law to
limit the number of patients that can be
assigned to one nurse, based on the type of
facility and the level of care.
●
A law to, among other things, require shelters
to hold the animals they take in for at least
seven days before euthanizing them, unless the
animal is seriously ill.
●
A law to prohibit therapy practices that cause
physical pain to people with disabilities in an
attempt to change behavior.
●
A law to require candidates for president and
vice president seeking to appear on the state’s
ballot to release copies of their federal income
tax returns for the prior six years.
●
A law to limit campaign contributions from
non-residents of Massachusetts and political
action committees organized outside the state.
●
A law directing the state to prohibit the use of
fishing gear known to entangle whales and sea
turtles.
●
Several variations of similar laws to boost the
use of renewable energy, including through
increasing clean-energy mandates for electricity
suppliers.
●
A constitutional amendment to allow the state to
exclude abortion from state-funded health care
plans. (The soonest this could appear on a
ballot is 2020, pending approval from the state
Legislature.)
The Attorney General’s office certified
questions on 16 topics in 2015, but only four
made it to the November 2016 ballot.
The Salem News
Thursday, November 23, 2017
Sales tax cut wins support as ballot campaign
moves forward
By Christian M. Wade, Statehouse Reporter
BOSTON — Proposals to lower the sales tax,
increase the minimum wage, and require employers
to offer paid medical leave moved a step closer
to next year’s ballot as backers turned in
hundreds of thousands of signatures in support
of the measures.
On Wednesday, committees supporting 20 statewide
referendums were rushing against a midnight
[sic-5:00 PM] deadline to submit the
required 64,750 signatures from voters to get on
the ballot in the 2018 elections. The petitions
were submitted to city and town clerks across
the state, and must still be certified.
Backers of a proposal to cut the sales tax from
6.25 percent to 5 percent, and set a permanent
tax-free weekend, say they’ve turned in more
than the required number of petitions and expect
to make next year's ballot.
"Judging by the feedback I've received from
volunteers, the voters have been very
responsive," said Jon Hurst, president of the
Massachusetts Retailers Association, which is
leading the initiative. "We're going to have
well over the required number of signatures to
get on the ballot."
The signature drive got a major boost from
Republican Geoff Diehl's U.S. Senate campaign,
which collected about 10,000 signatures ahead of
the deadline.
Diehl, of Whitman, is challenging incumbent
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren in the 2018
mid-term elections.
Another proposal would allow workers to take
time off to care for a seriously ill or injured
family member, or a new baby, for up to 16
weeks. During that period they would receive 90
percent of their average weekly wages, with a
maximum weekly benefit of $1,000.
Workers recovering from their own injuries or
illnesses could receive up to 26 weeks of paid
medical leave, under the proposal.
Carl Nilsson, campaign manager for Raise Up
Massachusetts, the coalition behind the
question, said thousands of volunteers spent
weeks collecting more than 271,000 signatures in
support of that referendum and another to raise
the minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2020.
"We're seeing a lot of support for both of these
initiatives," he said. "People need higher
wages, but they also need to better care for
their families if they themselves or a loved one
gets sick and they need to take time off from
work. Paid leave and a higher minimum wage go
together perfectly."
Both measures are opposed by business groups,
which say they would squeeze employers. The
state's minimum wage went up to $11 per hour
beginning this year.
Other initiatives
Raise Up Massachusetts — which includes labor,
community groups, and faith-based organizations
— is also pursuing a “millionaire tax” on the
state’s top earners, with the revenue earmarked
for education and transportation. That question
has already been cleared for the 2018 ballot.
Business groups have filed a legal challenge,
alleging that Attorney General Maura Healey
should never have certified the question for the
ballot.
One question unlikely to make next year's ballot
would limit the money contributed by
out-of-state donors for or against ballot
initiatives and candidates to $500 per election
cycle.
Nick Bokron, a welder from Nahant and co-founder
of Pass Mass Amendment, the group behind the
question, didn't have a final tally of
signatures collected but said the petition drive
fell short.
"We're still gathering the petitions and going
through the motions, but I just don't see us
getting the number of signatures we needed," he
said.
His group was also pursuing a ballot question
asking voters to require campaigns and
committees to disclose contributions by foreign
nationals and businesses in which non-U.S.
citizens have a sizable ownership stake. Healey
didn't certify that question for the ballot.
A separate proposal to ban "aversive therapy"
for disabled people also failed to gather enough
signatures by Wednesday's deadline. Neither did
a proposal to ban a fishing gear known to
entangle whales and sea turtles.
Supporters of the referendums still standing
after Wednesday have several more hurdles to
overcome.
Petitions turned into local clerks must be
certified by the Secretary of State's office by
Dec. 6. Once that happens, the Legislature has
until May to act on the proposals.
If lawmakers don't take up the issues,
supporters need to collect another 10,792
signatures by early July to make the ballot.
Only four of the 35 petitions filed with the
AG's office in the last election cycle
ultimately ended up on the November 2016 ballot.
WBUR-FM 90.9
Wednesday, November 15, 2017
WBUR Poll: 3 State Ballot Initiatives Enjoy
Overwhelming Support
By Fred Thys
Massachusetts voters appear to want to
significantly change the way the state's tax
burden is shared.
A new WBUR poll finds three proposed 2018
statewide ballot initiatives are enjoying
overwhelming support from Massachusetts voters.
The live telephone poll was conducted by the
MassINC Polling Group for WBUR.
The initiatives would raise the income tax on
earnings greater than $1 million a year; lower
the state sales tax from 6.25 percent to 5
percent; and require employers to provide paid
family medical leave.
The ballot initiative adding a surtax on income
over $1 million would direct the money raised to
pay for education and transportation.
Seventy-six percent of registered voters polled
say they would "strongly or somewhat" support
such a measure. Nineteen percent say they would
oppose it.
The state Department of Revenue estimates that
this so-called millionaires' tax would raise
between $1.6 billion and $2.2 billion in
additional annual revenue.
Noah Berger, president of the liberal
Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, says the
state could use the extra income.
"With the budget crisis we've had year after
year, the state hasn't been able to make those
kinds of long-term investments that could make a
real positive difference in people's lives and
in the future of our economy -- things like
making higher education more affordable,
expanding access to high-quality early
education, and improving our K through 12
schools," Berger said. "A new revenue source
ought to be able to help us to address those
long-term challenges and long-term challenges in
our transportation system."
The ballot initiative to lower the state sales
tax would also create a permanent sales tax
holiday one weekend each year.
Sixty-nine percent of respondents say they would
support the initiative, while 20 percent say
they would oppose it.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jeffrey
Sánchez, a Boston Democrat, tells WBUR the sales
tax cut would cost the state $1.3 billion in
annual revenues.
And whereas the high-income surtax is targeted,
the sales tax cut would hit across the board.
"Sales tax goes into the general fund, and we
expend it throughout the entire budget," Sánchez
said.
MassINC pollster Steve Koczela sees support for
these two measures as part of a broader national
populist sentiment.
"You raise wealthy people's taxes, and you cut
your own taxes," Koczela said. "The sales tax is
paid by a much broader swath of people in
Massachusetts. Anybody who buys something in
Massachusetts pays the sales tax, whereas the
so-called Fair Share or millionaires' tax would
raise taxes only on a very small percentage of
the population.
"So you can actually see [the initiatives] as
both related to one another ... and also as part
the general national political trend where the
middle classes and people who aren't going to be
affected by the millionaires' tax are looking
for ways to re-balance things economically."
If both measures pass, the projected increase in
annual state revenue would be between $300
million and $900 million.
Eileen McAnneny, president of the
business-supported Massachusetts Taxpayers
Foundation, warns against making tax policy by
ballot initiative.
"Those conversations are better taking place
through the legislative process," she said.
"It's more deliberative and more thoughtful."
McAnneny also warns that some of the money from
the millionaires' tax might not materialize.
"It's likely to be less than [what the state
estimates]," she said. "We've seen that in other
states that have enacted similar policies,
namely New Jersey and Connecticut. A lot of the
money that will come in is based on volatile
sources of income, so things like capital gains,
and dividends, and interest, which is highly
cyclical and where people have some control when
they sell capital assets and so forth."
The millionaires' initiative is headed for the
2018 ballot but faces a constitutional
challenge. The state's highest court has
scheduled oral arguments on the initiative's
constitutionality for early next year.
Supporters of the other two initiatives must
gather tens of thousands of signatures by
December 6.
The third proposed measure would allow workers
to take paid leave for a new child, a family
illness or if a family member goes on active
military service. It would be paid for by
employers, who'd pay a 0.6 percent payroll tax
to cover the cost.
Eighty-two percent of polled registered voters
say they would support the measure. Twelve
percent say they would oppose it.
The poll surveyed 503 registered voters between
November 9 and November 12. It has a margin of
error of 4.4 percent. |
| |
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
BACK TO CLT
HOMEPAGE
|
