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05-02-2006

Page history last edited by PBworks 17 years, 6 months ago

May 2, 2006

AMID RECORD REVENUES, ROMNEY AND HEALEY RENEW CALL FOR TAX CUT

 

 

A day after the state set a new record for monthly tax collections, Governor Mitt Romney and Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey used the occasion of Tax Freedom Day in Massachusetts to call on the Legislature to roll the income tax rate back to 5 percent.

 

According to the Washington, D.C.-based Tax Foundation, which computes Tax Freedom Day each year, Massachusetts residents must work a week longer than the average American to meet their overall tax burden. The National Tax Freedom Day was April 26, but Massachusetts residents’ total tax burden was not fulfilled until today.

 

The Tax Foundation estimates the average Massachusetts taxpayer must work four months and a day to pay their full tax burden of $16,427. So, on May 2, Massachusetts taxpayers stop working to pay their taxes and start working for themselves. The Foundation’s annual study includes all federal, state and local taxes.

 

“It may be Tax Freedom Day, but there’s no reason for celebration in Massachusetts,” Romney said. “Next year, I’d like to see Tax Freedom Day in Massachusetts arrive a little bit earlier and the way to make that happen is by reducing the income tax rate to 5 percent.”

 

Said Healey: “With state tax receipts continuing to exceed projections, now is the perfect time to honor the will of the voters and roll the state income tax back to 5 percent. We can afford to return more money to the people who have earned it. Let’s give a boost to family budgets across Massachusetts.”

 

“It’s been almost six years since voters across the state overwhelmingly told us to roll the income tax back to 5 percent,” said House Minority Leader Bradley H. Jones Jr. “With state tax revenues continuing to exceed expectations, there is no excuse for the Legislature to continue delaying action. The time has come for us to carry out the people’s wishes and put a plan in place to get us back to 5 percent.”

 

Yesterday, the Department of Revenue reported that tax collections in April totaled $2.215 billion, a new monthly record. Year-to-date revenues are now exceeding the original benchmark set last spring by $837 million.

 

“That money does not belong to the government,” Romney said. “That’s the taxpayers’ money and we can clearly afford to let them keep it.”

 

In 2000, voters overwhelmingly passed a referendum to reduce the income tax rate to 5 percent, but the Legislature froze the rate at 5.3 percent in the midst of a fiscal crisis. Now that the crisis is over, the Legislature should honor the will of the voters.

 

Barbara Anderson, executive director of Citizens for Limited Taxation, which placed the rollback on the 2000 ballot, highlighted the fact that it has been 17 years since the “temporary” income tax increase was passed to address an earlier fiscal crisis. “With record state revenues, Tax Freedom Day 2006 is a great day to demand the restoration of our traditional five percent income tax rate,” she said.

 

 

 

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