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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”
44 years as “The Voice of Massachusetts Taxpayers”
— and
their Institutional Memory — |
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CLT UPDATE
Sunday, July 15, 2018
The Beacon Hill Way: Tax
and Spend Ever More
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A bill
before the Senate Ways and Means Committee would allow
cities and towns, with the approval of local voters on a
ballot question, to increase taxes on payroll, sales,
property, fuel, or vehicle excise tax. The funds could be
used only for transportation-related purposes including
maintaining, repairing, planning, operating, improving and
constructing public transportation and transit systems,
including roads, bridges, bikeways and pedestrian pathways.
A city or town can act on its own or join other cities and
towns to form a regional alliance and pool the revenue....
“Revenue for the fiscal year that just ended surpassed
expectations by $1.2 billion,” said Chip Ford,
Executive Director of Citizens for Limited Taxation.
“Capital gains tax collections were so robust it triggered a
$290 million transfer to the state's Rainy Day Fund. Instead
of celebrating the taxpayer-generated windfall, Beacon Hill
does what Beacon Hill always does: Legislators look for new
ways to take even more money from taxpayers. More Is Never
Enough (MINE) and never will be, until they take it all.”
Beacon Hill Roll Call
Week of July 9-13, 2018
Regional transportation taxes (S 1551)
By Bob Katzen
When one door to transportation revenue closes, there's
an opportunity to try to open others, according to a
Longmeadow Democrat who is making an eleventh hour push for
local ballot initiatives to fund buses, highways and bike
paths, an option available in most other states.
The Supreme Judicial Court determined last month that a
constitutional amendment to levy additional taxes on the
highest earners to generate funds for transportation and
education was ineligible for the November ballot....
"There was a lot of hesitancy to engage in revenue items
while the Fair Share Amendment discussions pended. Now we
have finality on that. We have the feedback from the SJC.
This really elevates one of the most specific items we can
do right away to get those investments to transportation,"
Sen. Eric Lesser told advocates at a Wednesday briefing on
his bill (S 1551/H 1640). He said, "We were waiting on
making big revenue decisions until that was completed. Now
it's completed. We saw the answer. It wasn't what I
personally would have liked to have seen but this is a great
plan B."
Lesser's bill would enable local communities to band
together and ask their voters to support new regional taxes
to pay for local transportation projects.
The legislation is before the Senate Committee on Ways
and Means, which does not have a vote scheduled on it with
only three weeks remaining before the end of formal
sessions. Legislation has also not moved in the House.
By a 33-7 vote, the Senate tacked on a regional ballot
initiative measure to a municipal modernization bill in 2016
but the House did not, and the provision did not make it
into the version of the bill that became law.
State House News Service
Wednesday, July 11, 2018
After surtax fail, senator sees regional transpo taxes as
"Great Plan B"
With the millionaire tax ballot question shot down by the
Supreme Judicial Court, the debate over state transportation
funding is slowly starting to shift gears on Beacon Hill.
Rep. William Straus of Mattapoisett, the House chairman
of the Legislature's Committee on Transportation, said it's
time to start having a debate about alternative revenue
measures. He indicated nothing major is likely to happen
until after the November election, but said the issue needs
to be addressed in 2019.
"They are all unattractive choices. Everyone knows that.
But on the other hand everyone insists we need a reliable
transportation system," he said. "It's time to start working
on it. We're talking billions of dollars of underfunding in
our transit system." ...
Here are some of the options under consideration:
Millionaire tax II ... Gas tax ... Fee on vehicle miles
traveled ... TNC fee ... Regional ballot initiatives ...
Tolling ... Fare increases ...
CommonWealth Magazine
Thursday, July 12, 2018
Restarting the transportation funding debate
Shoppers could soon see a break from the state's sales
tax, with Beacon Hill leaders pushing to reinstate a two-day
tax holiday as early as this summer.
House Speaker Robert DeLeo, D-Winthrop, signaled in a
Twitter post last weekend his plans to call a vote before
the July 31 end of formal legislative sessions on a reprieve
from the 6.25 percent tax.
On Tuesday, the House approved an amendment to an
economic development bill that will establish Aug. 11 and 12
as a tax holiday. The bill must also pass through the Senate
before it can be signed into law by Gov. Charlie Baker....
Republican lawmakers have floated similar proposals but
Democrats who control the Legislature have declined to take
them up, citing budget shortfalls.
Earlier this year, Baker tacked a proposal to create an
annual sales tax holiday onto a sweeping $610 million
economic development bill. A final version the bill, which
emerged from the House Ways and Means Committee on Monday,
didn't include a tax holiday.
But House Republicans then filed one of two amendments to
include a holiday, which was taken up Tuesday.
The Salem News
Thursday, July 12, 2018
Sales tax holiday in the works for August
For many in the Massachusetts state Senate, the sales tax
holiday must feel like a bad penny. Try as they might to
lose it, the idea keeps turning back up. Senators should
take heart, however, and deem this next opportunity to
schedule a tax-free weekend as one of those rare chances to
fix past mistakes — a legislative do-over.
Their fellow lawmakers in the House have ornamented an
economic development bill with a two day reprieve from the
6.25 percent sales tax, scheduled for the weekend of Aug.
11-12. The Senate should embrace the holiday in its own
version of the bill, giving a break to back-to-school
shoppers and a boost to businesses along the border with
tax-free New Hampshire for the first time in three years.
That would mean changing their minds, of course. It’s
barely been two months since the Senate rejected a tax
holiday for this year, by a vote of 14 to 24.
A Salem News editorial
Thursday, July 12, 2018
Common sense lost in the haze
Governor Charlie Baker proposed Friday plowing $72
million into school safety, giving local districts an
infusion of cash to hire additional social workers, mental
health counselors, and psychologists, and offering grants to
upgrade security and communications at K-12 schools and
institutions of higher education....
The safety package is part of Baker’s budgetary framework
to spend the more than $1 billion in unexpected tax revenue
the state saw in the fiscal year that ended June 30. After
accounting for certain mandatory spending — including about
a half-billion-dollar deposit in the state’s rainy day fund
— Baker is proposing $575 million in outlays with the
surplus cash....
The governor files a final spending plan after the end of
every fiscal year — to pay, for example, bills that exceeded
expectations on, say, health care for the poor. What’s
unusual this year is policymakers have the flexibility to
spend so much unanticipated cash....
Baker, a Republican, is up for reelection this year.
The Boston Globe
Friday, July 13, 2018
Governor Baker proposes $72 million for school safety
measures
After voting themselves pay raises to start
the session, Massachusetts lawmakers have failed to
accomplish what their colleagues in every other state have
― pass a required annual state
budget outlining basic spending plans - and through
procrastination have set themselves up for another messy,
frantic finish to formal legislative sessions.
Legislative deliberations on major policy
and fiscal matters are not meant to be quick or easy but the
2017-2018 session has taken a surprising and arguably
unnecessary turn for the worse this month. After touting
similarities in their budgets and while constantly holding
themselves up as an alternative to the partisan dysfunction
in Washington, infighting among the Democrats means the
party that holds super-majorities in both branches is at
risk of ceding power over spending to Republican Gov.
Charlie Baker.
If lawmakers can't get a fiscal 2019 budget
to Baker next week, the governor could, if he's willing to
play hardball with Democrats, hold on to any spending bill
they send him late in the month and try to ensure his
spending vetoes hold up by issuing them after formal
sessions end July 31.
On the other hand, Baker may want to avoid
spending reductions that could prove problematic to his
re-election campaign and he's also been trying to play nice
with Democratic legislative leaders in an attempt to get his
own policy proposals moving.
In what seemed like an attempt to help them
to yes on the budget, Baker even gave Democrats his
clearance to spend a little more, citing over-benchmark tax
collections.
State House News Service
Advances ― Week of July 15,
2018
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Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
“Putting
locally-raised dollars toward projects that directly
benefit the community gives everyday tax payers a
critical say in the future of their region."
―Marc Draisen, Executive
Director of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council;
on Sen. Eric Lesser's “Regional transportation
ballot initiatives" (S-1551/H-1640)
"This
local-option bill is going to allow property owners
in a community to pool their resources together to
improve community through this benefits district
proposal."
―House Ways and Means Chairman Jeffrey Sanchez on
his "community benefit districts" (H-4546)
Do you also see the similarity, a developing
pattern for the Legislature's latest plot to radically
increase taxes while end-running Proposition 2½?
The House recently
passed its "community benefit districts" bill ― the first
step in this scheme. (See: CLT Update, May 31,
2018 ― "New
Micro-Municipal Government and a New Power to Tax")
Note that both
proposals are attempting to raise taxes to satisfy functions
that are historically the responsibility of state
government. These are activities that taxpayers
already pay the state to fund ― allegedly. That's
part of how that $41.5 billion in the state budget ― if the
Legislature ever gets around to passing it ― is supposed
to be spent.
Except $41.5 billion
is still not enough extracted from taxpayers for all
the spending the Legislature wants to squander.
There are still just
so darned many "unmet needs," sigh. The more that are
met, the more unmet needs erupt for legislators to assuage.
Remember the
diaper subsidy?
Keep in mind that the
entire state budget just ten years ago was "only"
$28.1 billion. This fiscal year's proposed budget
is $13.4 billion more than state spending was just
ten years ago.
State revenue for the
fiscal year that ended in June stacked up $1.2 billion
over and above what was expected and budgeted to be
spent. "Still not enough!" the chorus wails. The
insatiable Legislature needs more, more, always more.
Thus arises this entirely new taxation
scheme: Invent a completely new level of taxation.
Shift more of the state's
responsibilities onto municipal government, then give local
officials the power to create a bevy of new taxes to fund
them. End-run Proposition 2½
while calling it "the will of the voters." Then
legislators can keep squandering state revenue all to
themselves.
Oh sure, the scam is
to allegedly impose the new tax burden "democratically" ―
leave it up to the local voters to decide, don't you know.
But we all know which side has the free time and obscenely
deep pockets to organize, proselytize, and determine
local election outcomes: The public
employee/government worker unions. They exist to
increase taxpayer spending on themselves. And we know
who's most likely to show up and vote to benefit themselves
at oddly- and randomly-scheduled local elections ― the
public employees/government workers of course.
As municipalities must
increase taxes to fund the state's abandoned
responsibilities foisted upon cities and towns, the
Legislature will be working to enlarge its own take of state
revenue from taxpayers, through what they're now calling "Millionaire
Tax II" and/or another gas tax hike, a fee on vehicle miles
traveled, a TNC fee, expanded and jacked-up tolls, possibly
even T fare increases (a last resort only, of course) and
ever more "regional ballot initiatives."
Meanwhile, what is the Legislature doing
with that $1.2 billion unexpected windfall surplus of money
taken from taxpayers unnecessarily? Legislators are
following Gov. Baker's lead and invitation to spend it as
fast as they can. That is The Beacon Hill Way.
Never forget that this sitting Legislature's
very first order of business following the last
election was to ram through in a few weeks an $18 million
obscene pay hike grab for themselves.
But as long as voters keep rewarding these
"representatives" with election and re-election, why not
steal as much as they can?
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Chip Ford
Executive Director |
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Beacon Hill Roll Call
Week of July 9-13, 2018
Regional transportation taxes (S 1551)
By Bob Katzen
A bill before the Senate Ways and Means
Committee would allow cities and towns, with the
approval of local voters on a ballot question,
to increase taxes on payroll, sales, property,
fuel, or vehicle excise tax. The funds could be
used only for transportation-related purposes
including maintaining, repairing, planning,
operating, improving and constructing public
transportation and transit systems, including
roads, bridges, bikeways and pedestrian
pathways.
A city or town can act on its own or join other
cities and towns to form a regional alliance and
pool the revenue.
“Regional ballot initiatives, or RBIs, can help
fund a wide range of transportation projects,
from roadways and bike paths to all forms of
public transit, including commuter rail, light
rail, and buses,” said Marc Draisen, Executive
Director of the Metropolitan Area Planning
Council (MAPC), the regional planning agency for
Greater Boston. “Putting locally-raised dollars
toward projects that directly benefit the
community gives everyday tax payers a critical
say in the future of their region. Throughout
the country, such ballot initiatives are a key
tool in funding transportation improvements and
modernization. Massachusetts is one of only nine
states where they are not allowed. It’s time to
join the rest of America by allowing cities and
towns to use this tool.”
“Revenue for the fiscal year that just ended
surpassed expectations by $1.2 billion,” said
Chip Ford, Executive Director of Citizens
for Limited Taxation. “Capital gains tax
collections were so robust it triggered a $290
million transfer to the state's Rainy Day Fund.
Instead of celebrating the taxpayer-generated
windfall, Beacon Hill does what Beacon Hill
always does: Legislators look for new ways to
take even more money from taxpayers. More Is
Never Enough (MINE) and never will be, until
they take it all.”
State House News Service
Wednesday, July 11, 2018
After surtax fail, senator sees regional transpo
taxes as "Great Plan B"
By Andy Metzger
When one door to transportation revenue closes,
there's an opportunity to try to open others,
according to a Longmeadow Democrat who is making
an eleventh hour push for local ballot
initiatives to fund buses, highways and bike
paths, an option available in most other states.
The Supreme Judicial Court determined last month
that a constitutional amendment to levy
additional taxes on the highest earners to
generate funds for transportation and education
was ineligible for the November ballot.
Proponents of the so-called Fair Share Amendment
had hoped that measure, if passed, would
generate around $2 billion to spend on those two
areas.
"There was a lot of hesitancy to engage in
revenue items while the Fair Share Amendment
discussions pended. Now we have finality on
that. We have the feedback from the SJC. This
really elevates one of the most specific items
we can do right away to get those investments to
transportation," Sen. Eric Lesser told advocates
at a Wednesday briefing on his bill (S 1551/H
1640). He said, "We were waiting on making big
revenue decisions until that was completed. Now
it's completed. We saw the answer. It wasn't
what I personally would have liked to have seen
but this is a great plan B."
Lesser's bill would enable local communities to
band together and ask their voters to support
new regional taxes to pay for local
transportation projects.
The legislation is before the Senate Committee
on Ways and Means, which does not have a vote
scheduled on it with only three weeks remaining
before the end of formal sessions. Legislation
has also not moved in the House.
By a 33-7 vote, the Senate tacked on a regional
ballot initiative measure to a municipal
modernization bill in 2016 but the House did
not, and the provision did not make it into the
version of the bill that became law.
Marc Draisen, a major backer of the approach who
is the executive director of the Metropolitan
Area Planning Council, rallied those gathered in
a Senate meeting room to make progress on the
legislation this session to put it in a better
position next session, which begins in January.
According to the MAPC, the bill would authorize
communities to raise sales, property, payroll or
other taxes.
Even if the bill becomes law, it takes around
three to five years for communities to formulate
a regional transportation ballot initiative,
according to Draisen, who said that in states
that have legalized that type of process those
ballot questions have about a 70 percent success
rate.
According to Transportation for America, 41
states allow local ballot measures to secure
funding for transportation projects. The group
points to successful efforts to fund
transportation initiatives in Denver, Colorado;
Manhattan, Kansas; Volusia County, Florida;
Grand Rapids, Michigan; Seattle, Washington;
East Bay, California; Athens-Clarke County,
Georgia; Burlington, Vermont; Western Springs,
Illinois; Kitsap County, Washington; and Greene
County, Ohio.
Tim Brennan, executive director of the Pioneer
Valley Planning Commission, said his advocacy
for a regional ballot initiative in
Massachusetts dates back to 1987 when he saw its
potential for success in San Diego, California.
Massachusetts is one of nine states in the
country that does not allow its local
governments and citizenry to propose and pass
regional ballot initiatives to raise tax money
for transportation, according to Kevin Thompson,
director of Transportation for America.
Regional ballot initiatives are far from the
only idea for raising funds that many mobility
advocates say are needed to bulk up transit
capacity, improve roads and offer healthier
transportation offerings.
While cities and towns impose real estate taxes
to fund local services, the state Legislature
has reserved for itself the power to tap into
large sources of tax revenue from sales, incomes
and other sources.
The last big push for transportation revenue
occurred in 2013 when lawmakers raised the state
gas tax 3 cents while linking future increases
to inflation, imposed an additional $1 tax per
pack on cigarettes, and attempted to tax part of
the software services industry. Lawmakers
swiftly repealed the so-called tech tax on
certain software services, and voters in 2014
repealed the provision linking future gas tax
increases to inflation.
Massachusetts taxpayers finance about half of
the MBTA's $2 billion annual budget, with cities
and towns picking up about $170 million of that,
and lawmakers regularly pass a so-called Chapter
90 bill funding local road projects, although
the $200 million in funding this year falls
short of the roughly $700 million that the
Massachusetts Municipal Association says cities
and towns need to spend annually to keep 30,000
miles of local roadways in good shape.
Dave Williams, who was mayor of Suwanee, Georgia
and is now vice president of the Metro Atlanta
Chamber, said that local ballot initiatives have
"made a lot of headway" on transportation issues
in Georgia, where he said the state hasn't
played much of a role in funding transit.
"Georgia is a very conservative state when it
comes to funding anything," Williams said.
CommonWealth Magazine
Thursday, July 12, 2018
Restarting the transportation funding debate
By Bruce Mohl
With the millionaire tax ballot question shot
down by the Supreme Judicial Court, the debate
over state transportation funding is slowly
starting to shift gears on Beacon Hill.
Rep. William Straus of Mattapoisett, the House
chairman of the Legislature's Committee on
Transportation, said it's time to start having a
debate about alternative revenue measures. He
indicated nothing major is likely to happen
until after the November election, but said the
issue needs to be addressed in 2019.
"They are all unattractive choices. Everyone
knows that. But on the other hand everyone
insists we need a reliable transportation
system," he said. "It's time to start working on
it. We're talking billions of dollars of
underfunding in our transit system."
Sen. Eric Lesser of Springfield, a vice chair of
the Transportation Committee, pushed one
specific revenue option at an event on
Wednesday. He urged passage of a bill that would
allow neighboring communities to band together
to hold regional ballot initiatives to fund
local transportation projects. He acknowledged
the idea gained little traction on Beacon Hill
while the poll-popular millionaire tax remained
on the ballot.
"We were waiting on making big revenue decisions
until that was completed. Now it's completed. We
saw the answer. It wasn't what I personally
would have liked to have seen, but this is a
great plan B," he said.
The Baker administration has shown little
interest in talking about new revenues for
transportation. Transportation Secretary
Stephanie Pollack declined comment for this
story, but Joseph Aiello, the chairman of the
MBTA's Fiscal and Management Control Board, said
in April that he would like to see the board
begin exploring new revenue options toward the
end of this year so it can put a proposal before
the Legislature.
Here are some of the options under
consideration:
Millionaire tax II: The millionaire tax
would have imposed an additional surcharge on
incomes over $1 million. The ballot question
creating a millionaire tax was struck down by
the Supreme Judicial Court in June because the
question tied too many unrelated elements
together. For example, the question created the
tax but also directed that the money raised by
the tax go for transportation and education.
Several politicians have hinted that they would
like to see the Legislature pursue a change to
the state constitution allowing a millionaire
tax, but that would be another two-year process
with an uncertain outcome. It's true the
millionaire tax polled well, but many voters
also liked the way it directed the money for
specific uses rather than just turning the funds
over to Beacon Hill.
Gas tax: The state gasoline tax was last
raised in 2013 - rising 3 cents to 24 cents a
gallon. The tax was also indexed to inflation,
but indexing was shot down in 2014 by a ballot
question supported by Gov. Charlie Baker. The
gas tax offers many advantages. It's already in
place, easy to collect, and philosophically
attractive because it is a user tax of sorts. It
also provides a steady source of income that can
be used to issue bonds. The big disadvantage to
the gas tax is that it's likely to decline as
the shift to vehicles with better mileage of run
on electricity accelerates.
Fee on vehicle miles traveled: The
so-called VMT fee is more equitable than a gas
tax because anyone who drives a mile pays the
fee. There are logistical issues to work out
with the technology, but political opposition
may be the biggest hurdle. In 2016, Baker vetoed
a provision in a transportation bond bill that
would have directed the Department of
Transportation to apply for federal funds to
develop a VMT pilot program.
TNC fee: As part of an effort to regulate
transportation network companies (otherwise
known as the ride-hailing apps Uber and Lyft), a
20-cent fee was assessed on each ride in 2016.
The fee was largely an after-thought in the
legislation, but it produced nearly $13 million
in 2017. The money was split evenly between a
state transportation fund; MassDevelopment,
which is charged with using the money to help
the taxi industry; Boston, where 34 million of
the 64 million rides originated; and the rest of
the cities and towns where rides originated.
None of the money has been targeted for any
specific project, in part because no one saw the
fee as a revenue raiser. But Straus said he
thinks that's beginning to change as the
ride-hailing apps cause more congestion and need
dropoff and pickup locations on local streets to
avoid snarling traffic. Straus said the 20-cent
fee seems low to him; Lesser said the fee also
has limited impact on low-income people because
high-income people tend to use ride-hailing
apps. Straus pointed to Chicago, which began
assessing a 52-cent charge on TNC rides in 2015
and increased that amount by 15 cents in 2017,
with all of the additional money steered to the
Chicago Transit Authority. The fee is slated to
go up another 5 cents next year. The appeal of
the TNC fee is that it's in place and the
governor went along with the original concept.
The downside of the TNC fee is that it's new, so
it's unclear whether the revenues are reliable
enough to be used to float bonds.
Regional ballot initiatives: The proposed
legislation would allow neighboring communities
to assess virtually any type of tax on their
constituents to pay for transportation
initiatives. Massachusetts is one of only nine
states that doesn't allow local areas to raise
revenues on their own for transportation.
Supporters say the approach makes sense,
particularly in areas outside of Boston, where
needs are obvious but funding sources are
scarce. Another advantage is that such ballot
initiatives usually identify specific projects
or services to be funded, so a scorecard of
success or failure can be kept. Senator Lesser
likes the idea, but the legislation hasn't made
it very far on Beacon Hill. Pollack, the state
transportation secretary, is mum on the idea,
with her spokeswoman saying the Baker
administration would carefully review any
legislation that reaches the governor's desk.
Tolling: Many transit advocates think the
state should build more electronic tolls, but
that could be a tall order politically. Chris
Dempsey of Transportation for Massachusetts
thinks the better approach is to use tolls to
better manage traffic on the state's roads. He
favors reducing tolls for those who use roads at
less congested times. "We need to move beyond
the idea that the purpose of tolling is just to
raise revenue," he said. "When we're talking
about congestion, we need to think more broadly
than TNCs. What about smart tolling, not as a
revenue source but just as a way to better
manage our roads?"
Fare increases: Another MBTA fare
increase is likely in mid-2019. The T's Fiscal
and Management Control Board has signaled it
will raise fares then and the Baker
administration also favors that approach.
Pollack is fond of saying she prefers small,
regular fare increases. Under state law, the T
can only raise fares 7 percent at any one time.
The Salem News
Thursday, July 12, 2018
Sales tax holiday in the works for August
By Christian M. Wade, Statehouse Reporter
Shoppers could soon see a break from the state's
sales tax, with Beacon Hill leaders pushing to
reinstate a two-day tax holiday as early as this
summer.
House Speaker Robert DeLeo, D-Winthrop, signaled
in a Twitter post last weekend his plans to call
a vote before the July 31 end of formal
legislative sessions on a reprieve from the 6.25
percent tax.
On Tuesday, the House approved an amendment to
an economic development bill that will establish
Aug. 11 and 12 as a tax holiday. The bill must
also pass through the Senate before it can be
signed into law by Gov. Charlie Baker.
Two weeks ago, lawmakers had reached an
agreement with retailers creating a permanent
sales tax holiday in August and eliminating a
requirement that retailers pay workers
time-and-a-half on Sundays and holidays, in
exchange for dropping a ballot question seeking
to lower the sales tax to 5 percent.
But the so-called "grand bargain,” most of which
would go into effect next year, didn't require a
sales tax holiday this year.
"It’s good for retailers and Main Street
merchants, but it’s also good for consumers and
the economy," said Jon Hurst, president of the
Massachusetts Retailers Association, which
suggests that sales before and after the
tax-free weekend will help the state recoup some
of the nearly $20 million in tax revenue it will
lose.
Retailers view tax holidays as an opportunity to
lure shoppers during a slow season and level the
playing field with online retailers, which have
generally avoided paying the state's sales tax.
Many consumers use the weekend to stock up on
school supplies or more expensive goods.
The holiday is particularly important for
communities along the New Hampshire border that
compete year-round with stores in the tax-free
Granite State.
But the holiday, held in 12 of the last 15
years, has been on hold for the past two years
amid concerns about the state's fiscal
stability.
If lawmakers agree on a plan, not everything
would be tax-free. The holiday won't include
big-ticket items, such as cars and boats, or
single items costing more than $2,500. Nor would
it include taxes on energy bills, restaurant
meals, tobacco or marijuana products.
There’s no state sales tax on groceries or
clothing costing less than $175.
Retailers say Massachusetts' sales tax puts them
at a competitive disadvantage. The Bay State has
the third-highest sales tax in New England,
behind Rhode Island's 7 percent and
Connecticut's 6.35 percent.
Gov. Baker, a Swampscott Republican seeking a
second term, has sought to create a permanent
tax holiday to buoy brick-and-mortar retailers.
Republican lawmakers have floated similar
proposals but Democrats who control the
Legislature have declined to take them up,
citing budget shortfalls.
Earlier this year, Baker tacked a proposal to
create an annual sales tax holiday onto a
sweeping $610 million economic development bill.
A final version the bill, which emerged from the
House Ways and Means Committee on Monday, didn't
include a tax holiday.
But House Republicans then filed one of two
amendments to include a holiday, which was taken
up Tuesday.
"With state tax revenues coming in much stronger
than anticipated, there's really no reason not
to do this now," said Rep. Brad Hill, R-Ipswich,
who co-filed the amendment with House Minority
Leader Brad Jones, R-North Reading. "This is
important relief for retailers and consumers,
especially those along the New Hampshire
border."
Christian M. Wade covers the Massachusetts
Statehouse for The Salem News and its sister
newspapers and websites.
The Salem News
Thursday, July 12, 2018
A Salem News editorial
Common sense lost in the haze
For many in the Massachusetts state Senate, the
sales tax holiday must feel like a bad penny.
Try as they might to lose it, the idea keeps
turning back up. Senators should take heart,
however, and deem this next opportunity to
schedule a tax-free weekend as one of those rare
chances to fix past mistakes — a legislative
do-over.
Their fellow lawmakers in the House have
ornamented an economic development bill with a
two day reprieve from the 6.25 percent sales
tax, scheduled for the weekend of Aug. 11-12.
The Senate should embrace the holiday in its own
version of the bill, giving a break to
back-to-school shoppers and a boost to
businesses along the border with tax-free New
Hampshire for the first time in three years.
That would mean changing their minds, of course.
It’s barely been two months since the Senate
rejected a tax holiday for this year, by a vote
of 14 to 24.
A lot has happened since. Lawmakers, business
groups and labor interests struck a “grand
bargain” to get in front of ballot questions
that would have permanently created a tax
holiday, raised the minimum wage to $15 per hour
and mandated paid medical leave for workers.
While the deal instituted all of those things --
with some important tweaks -- it regrettably
didn’t schedule the next two-day tax break until
2019.
House Speaker Robert DeLeo said last weekend he
would fix that, and earlier this week his
colleagues voted accordingly.
Forgoing two days of taxes isn’t a benign
gesture for the state, which loses out on some
$20 million worth of expected collections.
That’s the reason lawmakers didn’t schedule the
holidays these past couple of years, citing
tough financial straits and ending a string of
successful summertime tax holidays over the
previous dozen years.
Squeezing a tax holiday onto this year's
calendar should be easier with the state well
into the black. There are hundreds of millions
more dollars in revenue in the coffers than were
projected.
Those are tax dollars, you know. So, while
senators should schedule a tax holiday because
it creates an economic spark during a slow
season for retail, they also should do it
because that extra money wasn’t really the
state’s to begin with.
The Boston Globe
Friday, July 13, 2018
Governor Baker proposes $72 million for school
safety measures
By Joshua Miller
Governor Charlie Baker proposed Friday plowing
$72 million into school safety, giving local
districts an infusion of cash to hire additional
social workers, mental health counselors, and
psychologists, and offering grants to upgrade
security and communications at K-12 schools and
institutions of higher education.
The plan comes in the wake of several
high-profile mass shootings at schools across
the United States and is part of a national
trend of government leaders trying to reduce the
risk of such tragedies.
“This is something that we have been discussing
with colleagues at the local level for the past
several months, especially after Parkland,”
Baker said at a news conference, referring to
the February shooting at a Florida high school
that killed 17 people and wounded 17 others.
“Their No. 1 request was funding to enhance the
state support for social workers, mental health
workers, and counselors in schools.”
Baker also noted to reporters that he recently
signed into law a bill that gives courts the
authority to strip weapons from people who have
been identified by their families as a danger to
themselves or others. And he underscored that,
according to recent federal data, Massachusetts
had a lower rate of firearm deaths than any
other state.
The safety package is part of Baker’s budgetary
framework to spend the more than $1 billion in
unexpected tax revenue the state saw in the
fiscal year that ended June 30. After accounting
for certain mandatory spending — including about
a half-billion-dollar deposit in the state’s
rainy day fund — Baker is proposing $575 million
in outlays with the surplus cash.
Alongside school safety and several other
education spending initiatives, the supplemental
budget also includes:
● $140 million to pay for costs at
MassHealth, the state’s Medicaid program;
● $50 million for helping cities and towns
repair roads and bridges;
● $48 million for future retiree health
care spending;
● $35 million for snow and ice costs from
last winter;
● $30 million for municipal water
infrastructure;
● $5 million for housing evacuees after
FEMA benefits end;
● and $3 million for the Cannabis Control
Commission, to fund costs related to the pot
agency beginning oversight of the state’s
medical marijuana program.
The governor files a final spending plan after
the end of every fiscal year — to pay, for
example, bills that exceeded expectations on,
say, health care for the poor. What’s unusual
this year is policymakers have the flexibility
to spend so much unanticipated cash.
Experts on and off Beacon Hill attribute at
least part of the windfall, and maybe most of
it, to the federal tax overhaul that President
Trump pushed through last year.
Like any other bill, the Democratic-controlled
Legislature will have a chance to rewrite it,
adjusting spending priorities.
Baker, a Republican, is up for reelection this
year. |
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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
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