Massachusetts' "temporary"
state income tax increase turns 10 this year.
Happy birthday, everyone.
When they increased the tax rate in
1989, the governor and the Legislature said: Times are bad, we need
the money.
Times have been good now for several
years -- so good the state is again poised to collect another huge tax
surplus.
In reality, a surplus is an
overcharge. It is the difference between what state services cost and
what state taxpayers are charged for those services.
The state could return the
overcharge by finally keeping its 10-year-old promise to eliminate the
"temporary" tax hike -- a change that could return $600 to
the typical taxpaying family.
But unless the people start
screaming -- and they should -- it is not going to happen.
Gov. A. Paul Cellucci is calling for
an income tax cut. But he is also inviting legislators to spend the
money by calling for the state's first-ever $20 billion budget.
Legislative leaders are in no rush
to keep the promise.
In fact, Senate President Thomas F.
Birmingham had the insolence to deny the tax hike was ever meant to be
temporary. "No such promise was made. ... No such representation
was made," he said last week.
It all depends what you mean by the
word "promise."
Throughout the bitter debate that
gave it birth 10 years ago, the tax hike was advertised as temporary
-- the bill specifically said it would die after 18 months.
But it lived, because legislators
voted to keep it alive. In fact, they voted to raise the rate still
higher. Times were still bad, they said.
The state income tax rate now stands
at 5.95 percent. The long-lost "permanent" tax rate was 5
percent.
Legislators reluctant to part with
all the extra money they've taken from taxpayers during the good years
have a novel excuse for not giving it back: The bad times may yet
return.
The last time the state passed a
"temporary" increase -- Gov. Michael S. Dukakis' 1975
surcharge -- it lasted 11 years.
Gov. Cellucci, Sen. Birmingham and
the rest seem hellbent on breaking the record.