Citizens for Limited Taxation is the largest,
longest-standing grassroots taxpayers
association in Massachusetts. CLT was founded in 1974 to defend state taxpayers against a proposed state
graduated income tax, which it defeated on the 1976 statewide ballot and
four times since, the latest in 1994.
CLT also limited property taxes
and dramatically reduced the auto excise tax with
its historic
Proposition 2½ in 1980,
created a
state tax cap in 1986, and got the signatures then
won the 2000 ballot
campaign to roll back the 1989 "temporary" income tax hike.
Defending
Proposition 2½ from
continual attacks
over the decades has been a permanent project in and of itself.
Citizens for Limited Taxation vigilantly strives to limit taxes,
to help taxpayers of Massachusetts keep as much of their hard-earned income as possible
and to reduce those taxes which have been imposed. CLT strives
to limit the size, growth, power and reach of government at all levels,
focused especially on state government. In
2019 CLT
celebrated its 45th year as the lonely voice of the beleaguered Massachusetts taxpayer.
A Promise to Keep: 5% was the most recent CLT ballot committee.
Beginning in the fall of 1997, our ballot committee organized two
statewide petition drives (1997 and 1999) with the intent of rolling
back the eleven-year old "temporary" income tax increase
imposed in 1989 by Governor Dukakis and the Legislature.
The first
petition signature drive effort was defeated by the
Massachusetts Teachers Association and the Tax Equity Alliance of
Massachusetts in a bruising court challenge of our signatures. After
months of back-and-forth individual signature challenges, attacks on
one after another on the veracity of hundreds of voters'
signatures, our petition was disqualified
by the court for falling 26 signatures short of over 70,000 signatures
certified by city and town clerks that we'd delivered.
With the support and leadership of
Governor Paul Cellucci, our second attempt in 1999 produced over twice
the required number of signatures, some 150,000.
Question 4 on the November 2000 ballot,
our rollback of the 1989 "temporary" income tax hike,
won overwhelmingly by 59-41
percent of the statewide vote.
In 2002, the Legislature
temporarily "froze" our rollback at 5.3 percent. CLT continued to fight for taxpayers and voters by insisting it be
fully implemented, as mandated by the voters. This finally
happened in 2020, when the rate was at last returned to 5
percent — thirty-one years after the
promised "temporary" income tax hike was imposed.
Please contact us for more
information on how you can help us defend you
against insatiable More-Is-Never-Enough (MINE) state government and its minions
and dependents who shamelessly shill constantly for more of your
money. Better yet
— join us and help yourself survive the insatiable greed of
ever-expanding
government special interests like the teachers' and public employees' unions which
relentlessly feed at the public trough, at your expense.
As the wise old Benjamin Franklin noted:
"We must all hang
together, or most assuredly we will all hang separately."
