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Post Office Box 1147 ●
Marblehead, Massachusetts 01945 ●
(781) 639-9709
“Every Tax is a Pay Cut ... A Tax Cut is a Pay Raise”
45 years as “The Voice of Massachusetts Taxpayers”
— and
their Institutional Memory — |
|
CLT UPDATE
Saturday, December 14, 2019
After
the Twenty-Plus-Year War — Victory!
After two decades
of waiting, Massachusetts residents are finally getting the
flat 5 percent income tax rate they voted for — but some
advocates who pushed for the reduction didn’t live to see
their work come to fruition.
“There are a lot
of taxpayers who worked on that campaign who never saw the
income tax reach 5 percent, as the voters mandated 20 years
ago,” Director of the Citizens for Limited Taxation Chip
Ford said. “Finally, it’s going to go back to 5 percent
as promised. I’d say too little, too late, but that’s what
you get from state government.”
The individual
income tax rate will be reduced from 5.05 percent to 5
percent effective Jan. 1, the Baker Administration announced
Friday. Voters approved a slash in the tax rate from 5.9
percent to 5 percent in 2000, but the Legislature decided to
reduce the rate gradually based on certain economic
triggers.
Ford and
Barbara Anderson, a longtime anti-tax activist,
cultivated an effort to get the question on the ballot
through their nonprofit about 30 years ago. He lamented that
Anderson, his partner of 20 years who died of leukemia in
2016, and many others involved in the advocacy work didn’t
live to see the fruits of their labor.
This upcoming tax
cut represents the conclusion of the statutory process laid
out in a 2002 state law to lower the income tax rate to 5
percent based on certain state revenue milestones, and will
return $88 million in Fiscal Year 2020 and approximately
$185 million in Fiscal Year 2021 to taxpayers.
The Boston Herald
Saturday, December 14, 2019
Massachusetts income tax drops to 5% flat rate — 20 years
after passage
It took only two
decades — two decades! — but Massachusetts taxpayers will
finally have the state income tax rate they once demanded.
The tax rate will
drop from 5.05 percent to 5 percent on Jan. 1, fulfilling
the will of voters who first approved the new rate through a
2000 ballot question, state officials said Friday. The
change will mean the taxpayers will keep, and the state will
forgo, a projected $88 million this fiscal year and another
$185 million the year after....
The drop is part
of a years-long, legislatively created process to more
slowly phase in the decline from 2000, when voters decided
to gradually knock the rate down from what was then 5.85
percent to 5 percent.
“It’s too little, too late — but better than nothing,” said
Chip Ford, executive director of Citizens for
Limited Taxation, which pushed the ballot question.
Ford’s late partner,
Barbara Anderson, was a driving force
for that and other tax-reduction initiatives.
“It’s unfortunate
that Barbara Anderson isn’t around to celebrate. It’s
only taken 20 years,” Ford said....
After voters opted
to slice the income tax rate in 2000, the first ticks
downward occurred at the start of 2001 and 2002.
But amid a stormy
financial picture, the Legislature stepped in, freezing the
rate at 5.3 percent and passing a set of thresholds the
state’s economy would need to meet each year for the rate to
continue dipping toward 5 percent. The move meant the cuts
would happen much more slowly than voters intended and only
if the state’s economy was in good standing.
The complicated
formula for triggering the tax cut included five steps.
Among them: Revenue, adjusted for inflation, must have
increased more than 2.5 percent from one fiscal year to the
next.
The state has not
hit the necessary benchmarks each year, so a tax cut has
been no sure thing from one January to the next. The rate
didn’t drop to 5.25 percent until 2012, and before declining
again in January 2019, the last cut hadn’t come until 2016,
when it dipped to 5.1 percent.
The state,
however, has enjoyed a humming economy in recent years, and
in fiscal years 2018 and 2019, the state ended its budget
cycle with at least a $1 billion surplus.
The Boston Globe
Friday, December 13, 2019
Voters passed a tax cut. Lawmakers balked. Twenty years
later, it’s finally here
The Baker
Administration announced that sufficient economic growth in
2019 under the terms of a 2002 law will result in a tax cut
for millions of Bay State taxpayers in 2020. The cut
would come from a reduction in the income tax rate and
long-term capital gains tax from 5.05 percent to 5 percent
effective January 1, 2020. The administration said the
cuts are estimated to result in an $88 million tax reduction
in partial fiscal year 2020 and $185 million in full fiscal
year 2021....
“It’s a shame that
Barbara Anderson isn’t around to celebrate, after all
the labor she put into keeping the promise and rolling back
the ‘temporary’ income tax, including two statewide petition
drives and the 2000 ballot campaign,” said Chip Ford,
executive director of Citizens for Limited Taxation,
which put the rollback question on the 2000 ballot.
“She died three years ago, and Chip Faulkner, CLT’s
associate director who coordinated the petition drives,
passed away this year. But considering that almost two
generations have passed since that false ‘promise’ was made
and remained broken, there are many former-taxpaying souls
who are no longer with us to celebrate as well. There
are a multitude of taxpayers today – almost two generations
of them – for whom this will be the first time they’ll ever
have paid a 5 percent income tax in their lifetime.”
Not everyone is
celebrating. “The income tax is one of the few revenue
sources that asks high-income people to pay in-line with
their larger bank rolls,” said Phineas Baxandall, Senior
Analyst at the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center.
“Repeated cuts to the income tax rate are a big reason that
Massachusetts’ tax system is upside-down. Those with
higher incomes end up paying a smaller share of their
income, on average, than moderate- and low-income taxpayers
pay.”
Beacon Hill Roll Call
Week of December 9-13, 2019
Automatic Income Tax and Long-Term Capital Gains Cut on
January 1
By Bob Katzen
|
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Massachusetts Gov. Paul
Cellucci thanks supporters of ballot
Question 4 during a Republican Party
election night gathering in Woburn, Mass.,
Tuesday evening, Nov. 7, 2000. Applauding,
at right, is Barbara Anderson from the group
Citizens for Limited Taxation (on the left
is CLT's Chip Faulkner). Question 4 would
cut the state income tax rate from 5.85
percent to 5 percent over three years. (AP
Photo/Charles Krupa)
NOTE
Front Row: Faulkner, Cellucci, and
Anderson are all now deceased. |
It all depends
on your definition of “temporary” and “emergency.”
The good news
is, the “temporary” state income tax increase of 1989,
which we were promised would be gone after 18 months, is
now finally going to be rescinded, a mere 20 years after
the voters repealed it in a referendum landslide that
the hacks at the State House have been ignoring ever
since.
And remember,
that referendum in 2000 was only passed after a decade
of lying and stalling by the hackerama about how the
state couldn’t “afford” to keep its promises.
So this wasn’t
a 20-year lie, it was 30 years of deceit.
The referendum
to stop the thievery was pushed through by then-Gov.
Paul Cellucci, who died in 2013, and Barbara Anderson
of Citizens for Limited Taxation (CLT). She died
in 2016.
Consider the
other side, the Democrats who fought to keep the con
going. They include a long list of crooked House
speakers like Good Time Charlie Flaherty, convicted of
income-tax evasion, Felon Finneran, convicted of
obstruction of justice, Sal DiMasi, convicted of
extortion, and Bob DeLeo, named as an unindicted
co-conspirator in yet another scandal.
When you
consider the ongoing crime wave on Beacon Hill, it’s
remarkable it only took taxpayers 30 years to get
Stanley Rosenberg et al. to keep their promises....
Now the hacks
are chuckling that this final income-tax cut, from 5.05
back to 5%, “only” means a savings of $39 on an income
of $100,000 for the final six months of fiscal year
2020. What’s so funny about that — think how much extra
dough everyone would have had if they’d kept their
original promise to cut the rate from 5.95 to 5% when
they said they would … in 1991.
Chip Ford
of CLT sent out a link to some of the old stories and
press releases from the referendum on Question 4 in
2000. The taxpayers’ slogan that year was, “Yes on 4,
Before They Come Back for More.”
The Boston Herald
Saturday, December 14, 2019
Siphoning money from the people is
taxing work for state’s payroll patriots
Charlie Baker’s TCI just another sham to tax
Massachusetts residents
|
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
Victory at
last, and how sweet it is. It's sad that Barbara
and Chip Faulkner aren't still with us to partake of our
success. Without them this would never have
happened, would never have even been possible.
That it took so long after all our hard work together to
accomplish this is simply disgusting, but that it has
finally occurred is a reminder of how much they both
did, and gave, for the taxpayers of Massachusetts
— and why we must keep
battling on for, as I promised Barbara before she left
us, "as long as humanly possible."
So many others
who were part of this long slog to success are also no
longer with us. I was reminded just yesterday that
Patricia "Pat" Wornock passed away on December 16, 2006.
Pat was on the CLT board of directors way back when the
organization first launched Proposition 2½.
A fellow Marbleheader along with Barbara and me, she
also served as the chairwoman of the town's Republican
Committee and was a Republican State Committeewoman.
Pat, a very close friend of Barbara's and later mine,
was a long-time integral gear in the mechanism of CLT
who always gave our causes 110% of her attention, time,
and energy. Pat, I learned, was born in
Louisville, Kentucky.
There are so many
above-and-beyond-the-call key activists and supporters I
could name that made this much-belated success possible
who have passed on. Twenty years is a long time to
wait around for something that should have
happened but didn't until now, but I'm confident
they're all looking down from above and cheering,
joining with us in our celebration this day.
Congratulations taxpayers.
After
two statewide petition drives and a
statewide ballot campaign waging our
Twenty-Plus-Year War against Beacon Hill perfidy, at
long last all of us who together make up CLT are
victorious!
The biggest lesson I've learned
from this decades-long ordeal is: Most politicians
will say anything necessary to get what they want.
Never trust a politician making promises. If their
lips are moving they're probably lying.
Winston Churchill best summed up
our long, arduous road to eventual victory:
“Never give in — never, never,
never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty,
never give in except to convictions of honor and good
sense.”
Thank you one and all for helping
to make this day possible for every Massachusetts
taxpayer. It sure has been a long
time coming.
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Chip Ford
Executive Director |
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|
|
The Boston Herald
Saturday, December 14, 2019
Massachusetts income tax drops to 5% flat rate —
20 years after passage
Charlie Baker administration implements rate on
Jan. 1
By Mary Markos
After
two decades of waiting, Massachusetts residents
are finally getting the flat 5 percent income
tax rate they voted for — but some advocates who
pushed for the reduction didn’t live to see
their work come to fruition.
“There are a lot of taxpayers who worked on that
campaign who never saw the income tax reach 5
percent, as the voters mandated 20 years ago,”
Director of the Citizens for Limited Taxation
Chip Ford said. “Finally, it’s going to go
back to 5 percent as promised. I’d say too
little, too late, but that’s what you get from
state government.”
The individual income tax rate will be reduced
from 5.05 percent to 5 percent effective Jan. 1,
the Baker Administration announced Friday.
Voters approved a slash in the tax rate from 5.9
percent to 5 percent in 2000, but the
Legislature decided to reduce the rate gradually
based on certain economic triggers.
Ford and Barbara Anderson, a longtime
anti-tax activist, cultivated an effort to get
the question on the ballot through their
nonprofit about 30 years ago. He lamented that
Anderson, his partner of 20 years who died of
leukemia in 2016, and many others involved in
the advocacy work didn’t live to see the fruits
of their labor.
This upcoming tax cut represents the conclusion
of the statutory process laid out in a 2002
state law to lower the income tax rate to 5
percent based on certain state revenue
milestones, and will return $88 million in
Fiscal Year 2020 and approximately $185 million
in Fiscal Year 2021 to taxpayers.
“It’s obviously way overdue, but it should be
celebrated any time in Massachusetts that the
taxpayers get to keep more of their hard-earned
money,” MassFiscal Alliance Spokesman Paul
Craney told the Herald. “A lot of people,
especially around Jan. 1, are going to be
feeling a pinch in their wallet and checking
account because of the holidays so the fact that
taxpayers are able to keep more of their money,
even if it may not be as much as they want, is a
step in right direction.”
The type of income that will see the reduction
includes wages, salary, and many other forms of
income, including self-employment income;
business, professional and farm income; S
corporation distributions; and rental income
from personal property. The rate also applies to
several other income categories, including
interest and dividends and most long-term
capital gains.
“It took almost two decades, but the people’s
voice has finally been heard,” Mary Connaughton,
director of Government Transparency and Finance
and Administration at the Pioneer Institute
said.
Lawmakers on Beacon Hill are still considering
various tax hikes and fees, however, despite the
state collecting a $1 billion surplus after
experiencing unprecedented revenue growth in the
most recent fiscal year.
“If these politicians have their way, the cost
of living and doing business in Massachusetts
will increase year after year,” Craney said,
“but for the time being on Jan. 1 when this goes
into effect, it will be at last one chance for
celebration. Voters finally have the relief they
voted for in 2000.”
The Boston Globe
Friday, December 13, 2019
Voters passed a tax cut. Lawmakers balked.
Twenty years later, it’s finally here
By Matt Stout
It
took only two decades — two decades! — but
Massachusetts taxpayers will finally have the
state income tax rate they once demanded.
The tax rate will drop from 5.05 percent to 5
percent on Jan. 1, fulfilling the will of voters
who first approved the new rate through a 2000
ballot question, state officials said Friday.
The change will mean the taxpayers will keep,
and the state will forgo, a projected $88
million this fiscal year and another $185
million the year after.
To the average taxpayer, the savings will
probably be small. For example, someone who is
single with no young children, rents their home,
and has an income of $50,000 will keep an
estimated $20 — the same amount when the income
tax rate dipped this past January from 5.1
percent. Someone who is a head of household, a
renter, and has two children under 12 on an
income of $45,000 would save even less: $12.
Meanwhile, a married, home-owning couple with a
$100,000 income and two young children stands to
keep $39, while someone in the same situation
but making $1 million would save $489, according
to Governor Charlie Baker’s budget office.
The drop is part of a years-long, legislatively
created process to more slowly phase in the
decline from 2000, when voters decided to
gradually knock the rate down from what was then
5.85 percent to 5 percent.
“It’s too little, too late — but better than
nothing,” said Chip Ford, executive
director of Citizens for Limited Taxation,
which pushed the ballot question. Ford’s late
partner,
Barbara Anderson, was a driving force
for that and other tax-reduction initiatives.
“It’s unfortunate that Barbara Anderson
isn’t around to celebrate. It’s only taken 20
years,” Ford said.
The rate decrease, however, is not the only
change in store. Thanks to the drop, taxpayers
will again be allowed to claim charitable
deductions on their state tax returns starting
in January 2021. Voters had approved that
deduction at the ballot box in 2000, too, but
taxpayers were able to capitalize on it for only
one tax year before the Legislature suspended
it.
Jim Klocke of the Massachusetts Nonprofit
Network said the change could provide a boost to
individual charitable giving, which declined in
2018. And with that back in play, the state
estimates it will cost it $64 million in revenue
in fiscal year 2021, and roughly $300 million on
a full-fiscal-year basis.
That means when both the deduction and the new 5
percent income rate are in effect for the full
fiscal year 2022 — which runs between July 2021
and June 2022 — the state could forgo nearly
$500 million in tax revenue.
“Starting in January, the income tax rate will
be the lowest it has been in decades, allowing
Massachusetts taxpayers to be able to keep more
of their hard-earned money,” Baker said in a
statement.
That, of course, also means less money the state
has at its disposal to craft its annual budget,
and some warned the compounding changes could
put policymakers in a tightening bind.
With analysts forecasting slower revenue growth
next year, the state also must find an
additional $300 million each year through 2027
to put toward education, following a sweeping
new school funding law. Lawmakers and advocates
have also pushed the state to commit more funds
toward the state’s aging public transit system —
a call leaders in the House have said they’ll
address through a new transportation financing
bill in 2020.
“We’re now going to be stripping a half billion
dollars from the Commonwealth’s budget at the
same time we’re going to be making a
long-deferred commitment to our education and
transportation systems,” said Phineas Baxandall,
a senior analyst for the left-leaning
Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center. “It’s
kind of difficult timing.”
But not all tax changes may be written in red
ink. As sectors like the legal marijuana
industry mature in Massachusetts, that could add
to tax revenue, said Michael Goodman, executive
director of the Public Policy Center at the
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.
Under Massachusetts law, customers can pay as
much as a 20 percent tax on adult-use marijuana
products, made up of a 6.25 percent state sales
tax, a 10.75 percent state excise tax, and an
optional 3 percent local tax. Medical marijuana
purchases are not taxed.
Goodman also pointed to a potential surtax on
income above $1 million, which supporters say
could generate $2 billion in revenue should it
pass muster with lawmakers and the courts before
possibly going on the ballot in 2022.
After voters opted to slice the income tax rate
in 2000, the first ticks downward occurred at
the start of 2001 and 2002.
But amid a stormy financial picture, the
Legislature stepped in, freezing the rate at 5.3
percent and passing a set of thresholds the
state’s economy would need to meet each year for
the rate to continue dipping toward 5 percent.
The move meant the cuts would happen much more
slowly than voters intended and only if the
state’s economy was in good standing.
The complicated formula for triggering the tax
cut included five steps. Among them: Revenue,
adjusted for inflation, must have increased more
than 2.5 percent from one fiscal year to the
next.
The state has not hit the necessary benchmarks
each year, so a tax cut has been no sure thing
from one January to the next. The rate didn’t
drop to 5.25 percent until 2012, and before
declining again in January 2019, the last cut
hadn’t come until 2016, when it dipped to 5.1
percent.
The state, however, has enjoyed a humming
economy in recent years, and in fiscal years
2018 and 2019, the state ended its budget cycle
with at least a $1 billion surplus.
— Felicia Gans
of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
Beacon Hill Roll
Call
Week of December 9-13, 2019
Automatic Income Tax and Long-Term Capital Gains
Cut on January 1
By Bob Katzen
The
Baker Administration announced that sufficient
economic growth in 2019 under the terms of a
2002 law will result in a tax cut for millions
of Bay State taxpayers in 2020. The cut would
come from a reduction in the income tax rate and
long-term capital gains tax from 5.05 percent to
5 percent effective January 1, 2020. The
administration said the cuts are estimated to
result in an $88 million tax reduction in
partial fiscal year 2020 and $185 million in
full fiscal year 2021.
Under the same 2002 law, the state charitable
deduction will be reinstated on January 1, 2021.
The estimated loss of revenue from the
charitable deduction is $64 million in partial
fiscal year 2021 and approximately $300 million
in full fiscal year 2022.
All these reductions were originally supposed to
take place in 2003 under the terms of a
voter-approved ballot question in 2000. Citizens
for Limited Taxation spearheaded that ballot
question which was approved 59 percent to 41
percent. But it has taken 20 years for the rates
to go down to 5 percent and for the charitable
deduction to be revived.
These tax cuts do not need the approval of the
Legislature. They are part of a system devised
by the Legislature when it approved a $1
billion-plus tax hike package in 2002. The
package took away the charitable deduction
completely, set the long-term capital gains tax
at 5.3 percent and froze the income tax rate at
5.3 percent instead of allowing them to drop to
5 percent in January 2003 — a reduction that was
approved by voters on the 2000 state ballot. The
2002 law also includes an automatic trigger that
reduces both taxes by one-half of 1 percent each
year, until it reaches 5 percent, if certain
goals are met, including if revenue from the
prior fiscal year grew at least 2.5 percent
faster than the rate of inflation. This upcoming
tax reduction to 5 percent represents the
conclusion of the process laid out in the 2002
state law.
“Starting in January, the income tax rate will
be the lowest it has been in decades, allowing
Massachusetts taxpayers to be able to keep more
of their hard-earned money,” said Gov. Charlie
Baker. “Our administration is working to keep
the commonwealth’s economy strong while
maintaining fiscal discipline and now we are
finally making happen what voters called for
almost 20 years ago.”
“It’s a shame that Barbara Anderson isn’t
around to celebrate, after all the labor she put
into keeping the promise and rolling back the
‘temporary’ income tax, including two statewide
petition drives and the 2000 ballot campaign,”
said Chip Ford, executive director of
Citizens for Limited Taxation, which put the
rollback question on the 2000 ballot. “She died
three years ago, and Chip Faulkner, CLT’s
associate director who coordinated the petition
drives, passed away this year. But considering
that almost two generations have passed since
that false ‘promise’ was made and remained
broken, there are many former-taxpaying souls
who are no longer with us to celebrate as well.
There are a multitude of taxpayers today –
almost two generations of them – for whom this
will be the first time they’ll ever have paid a
5 percent income tax in their lifetime.”
Not everyone is celebrating. “The income tax is
one of the few revenue sources that asks
high-income people to pay in-line with their
larger bank rolls,” said Phineas Baxandall,
Senior Analyst at the Massachusetts Budget and
Policy Center. “Repeated cuts to the income tax
rate are a big reason that Massachusetts’ tax
system is upside-down. Those with higher incomes
end up paying a smaller share of their income,
on average, than moderate- and low-income
taxpayers pay.”
“It’s a day that should be celebrated that even
in Massachusetts, occasionally the taxpayer can
keep more of their hard-earned income before
state leaders can dig any deeper into our
checking accounts,” said Paul Diego Craney,
spokesman for the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance.
“It’s long overdue but it goes to show you how
hard it is to advocate for the taxpayer at the
Statehouse. I don’t think our state leaders even
know how to spell ‘tax cut.’”
The Boston Herald
Saturday, December 14, 2019
Siphoning money from the people is taxing work for state’s payroll
patriots
Charlie Baker’s TCI just another sham to tax Massachusetts residents
By Howie Carr
|
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Massachusetts Gov. Paul Cellucci thanks supporters of ballot
Question 4 during a Republican Party election night
gathering in Woburn, Mass., Tuesday evening, Nov. 7, 2000.
Applauding, at right, is Barbara Anderson from the group
Citizens for Limited Taxation
(on the left is CLT's Chip Faulkner).
Question 4 would cut the state income tax rate from 5.85
percent to 5 percent over three years. (AP Photo/Charles
Krupa)
NOTE Front Row:
Faulkner, Cellucci, and Anderson are all now deceased. |
It all depends on your
definition of “temporary” and “emergency.”
The good news is, the “temporary” state income tax increase of 1989,
which we were promised would be gone after 18 months, is now finally
going to be rescinded, a mere 20 years after the voters repealed it in a
referendum landslide that the hacks at the State House have been
ignoring ever since.
And remember, that referendum in 2000 was only passed after a decade of
lying and stalling by the hackerama about how the state couldn’t
“afford” to keep its promises.
So this wasn’t a 20-year lie, it was 30 years of deceit.
The referendum to stop the thievery was pushed through by then-Gov. Paul
Cellucci, who died in 2013, and Barbara Anderson of Citizens
for Limited Taxation (CLT). She died in 2016.
Consider the other side, the Democrats who fought to keep the con going.
They include a long list of crooked House speakers like Good Time
Charlie Flaherty, convicted of income-tax evasion, Felon Finneran,
convicted of obstruction of justice, Sal DiMasi, convicted of extortion,
and Bob DeLeo, named as an unindicted co-conspirator in yet another
scandal.
When you consider the ongoing crime wave on Beacon Hill, it’s remarkable
it only took taxpayers 30 years to get Stanley Rosenberg et al. to keep
their promises.
It could be worse, after all. In 1989, the same year the hacks rammed
through the “emergency temporary” tax hike, the Turnpike tollbooths were
supposed to come down, since the bonds that had been sold to build the
interstate highway had finally been paid off.
Perhaps you’ve noticed there was a slight change in plans. Instead of
eliminating the tolls, they’ve, what, doubled them?
Now the hacks are chuckling that this final income-tax cut, from 5.05
back to 5%, “only” means a savings of $39 on an income of $100,000 for
the final six months of fiscal year 2020. What’s so funny about that —
think how much extra dough everyone would have had if they’d kept their
original promise to cut the rate from 5.95 to 5% when they said they
would … in 1991.
Chip Ford of CLT sent out a link to some of the old stories and
press releases from the referendum on Question 4 in 2000. The taxpayers’
slogan that year was, “Yes on 4, Before They Come Back for More.”
Talk about prescient. Here’s a very partial list of the depredations
inflicted by the non-working classes since Question 4: doubling the
marijuana and deeds taxes, 75% tax on vaping products, 25% increase in
sales tax, imposing sales tax on the excise tax on alcohol (repealed by
the voters), an automatic annual gas tax increase (also repealed by
popular demand), and coming soon, another shot at a graduated income
tax.
Another old CLT slogan: One tax is too many, and a thousand are not
enough.
And sure enough, just as the needle that’s been delivering their fix
these last 30 years is finally yanked out of their junkie veins, the
hacks are queuing up for another hit.
This week they’re touting yet another gas tax — a second gas tax, on top
of the 44.9 cents (state and federal) the leeches are already grabbing
on every gallon.
They call this latest con the Transportation & Climate Initiative (TCI)
but it’s really a TAX — a regional scam to impose a “fee” on carbon
emissions from gasoline and diesel. By not calling it a tax, the hacks,
led by the shameless RINO governor Tall Deval, think they can push this
unconstitutional robbery through without benefit of approval by either
the Legislature or the electorate.
The payroll patriots are calculating that the state’s corrupt judges
will back them up — because it’s nothing more than the next
multi-billion-dollar heist to protect the hacks’ phony-baloney jobs and
pensions.
This is the biggest grift being run against working people since that
emergency temporary income tax hike of 1989, which was only going to be
needed for 18 months, er, 30 years.
National Panhandling Radio (NPR) is parroting the party line, describing
this second gas tax as a “regional effort to drive down emissions.”
Correction: It’s a regional effort to drive down the income of people
who work, and divert billions more into the pockets of those who don’t.
So the hacks and the climate cultists are scheming this weekend to make
this latest heist look like a rescue effort for polar bears, but it’s
just another con. Read up on the scam at massfiscal.org and then call
your local legislators before Tuesday.
This attempted theft is a real emergency, because this time the hacks
aren’t even pretending it’s temporary.
Check out Howie’s latest podcasts at
howiecarrshow.com
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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
▪ (781) 639-9709
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