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No going back to âTaxachusettsâ
The stateâs already overflowing coffers will soon receive billions from the federal government. Instead of raising taxes, the focus should be on restoring jobs.
By Bill Weld, Karen Andreas, Peter Forman, and Rick SullivanUpdated May 19, 2021, 3:00 a.m.
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Globe staff illustration/zwiebackesser/Adobe
Ironic, incongruous, inconceivable, or all of the above? The Massachusetts Department of Revenue recently announced that April collections were $385 million ahead of estimates. That should come as no surprise because collections outpaced projections by hundreds of millions of dollars
each month this year.
In a great irony, on the same day that the DOR announced that April revenues put Massachusetts $3.4 billion ahead of this time last year, a union-backed lobbying group, Raise Up Massachusetts, kicked off a campaign to raise taxes by $2 billion annually.
Advocates have launched a new campaign for a so-called “millionaires tax” in Massachusetts.
Grassroots local organizing has already started in anticipation that a proposed constitutional amendment creating a surtax on high-income earners will be on the ballot in November 2022.
We re calling on the legislature to act one more time and put the Fair Share Amendment on the ballot and let the people vote, said Pablo Ruiz, deputy director of the SEIU State Council, and one of the leaders of Raise Up Massachusetts – a coalition of labor unions, student organizations, and religious groups.
Today a few multimillionaires are hoarding their wealth, Ruiz said at a press conference this week to announce the launch of the public campaign to pass the amendment.
The City Council voted emphatically, 9-0, on Monday night to create a new ordinance that not only bans fireworks, but also creates a $300 non-criminal fine that the Chelsea Police intend to enforce vigorously after last summer’s crazy battle with fireworks.
Councilor Todd Taylor said he had never gotten so many calls from so many corners of the City after he spoke up last summer about the barrage of fireworks during the pandemic from May to August. Nightly, fireworks boomed throughout the sleeping hours and disrupted the lives of many residents – with virtually nothing that could be done enforcement-wise due to the soft ordinance that was on the books.
May 5, 2021 | 3:25 PM
Three years ago, Massachusetts voters looked poised to pass the so-called “millionaire’s tax,” a ballot initiative to place an additional 4 percent tax on annual income over $1 million and use the revenue up to $2 billion a year to fund public education and transportation improvements.
Supporters blew past the number of signatures needed to qualify for the 2018 ballot. Poll after poll after poll showed the proposed state constitutional amendment with an overwhelming 4-to-1 margin of support.
But before Massachusetts voters had a chance to officially weigh in, the ballot question was struck down by the state’s Supreme Judicial Court, which ruled that the “Fair Share Amendment” unconstitutionally combined two independent subjects spending on education and on transportation.