What is the Fair Share Amendment?
The Fair Share Amendment, passed by voters in 2022, is generating billions in yearly support for transportation and public education. The revenue comes from an additional tax on households with very high annual incomes—that’s why it’s also known as a “millionaire’s tax.”
Fair Share In Action
MassBudget is providing the analysis and insights necessary for the Commonwealth to maximize its impact—from the structures created to ensure the money goes where voters intended to allocating resources in our state budget.
Two Years of Fair Share Funding at Work
Nearly two years after Massachusetts voted to create a more equitable tax system to directly support education and transportation, $2.3 billion dollars have been dispersed to a wide variety of important programs.
Fair Share Advances Racial Equity Through New Budget Investments
The first year of investments made with Fair Share dollars demonstrate how the new surtax creates opportunities to mitigate the ongoing harms of structural racism while improving the Commonwealth as a whole.
Three Funds, One Purpose: Implementing Fair Share
The Fiscal Year 2024 budget is the first state budget to include money raised from the Fair Share Amendment, making important investments in education and transportation. Lawmakers took additional steps to create mechanisms that will facilitate transparency, stability, and protect the intent of the amendment.
Your Fair Share Dollars at Work: Critical Investments and Hard Choices
The Fair Share Amendment is doing what voters wanted it to do: making new, important investments in our Commonwealth and making our tax system more equitable.
Will high-earners leave Massachusetts?
Opponents of the Fair Share Amendment always claimed that it would cause high-income households to flee Massachusetts. Are they? The data, so far, says no.
New IRS Data Points to Affordability and Not Taxes as the Cause of Massachusetts Outmigration
Read MassBudget’s initial statement about the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) state-to-state, county-to-county, and gross migration data for the United States on March, 19, 2026. Data Highlights On March 19, 2026, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released the 2022-2023 state-to-state, county-to-county, and gross migration data for the United States. This dataset compares tax returns that were filed and processed by the IRS during calendar year 2022 versus those filed and processed during calendar year 2023. The data allow for a look at moves made by filers across these two periods. The Massachusetts data offer several key takeaways. First, Massachusetts is not in the midst of a crisis of population loss. Second, the net number of households choosing to leave Massachusetts dropped significantly in 2022-2023 when compared to the 2021-2022 migration data. Third, the number of households exiting the state modestly exceeded the number moving to the Commonwealth. Finally, age and income details about departing households point to policies that can slow or reverse net outmigration from Massachusetts – and to policies that will not. The new IRS migration data1 show Massachusetts with a net loss of 16,464 households during the 2022-2023 period. This is significantly less than the net loss of ...
New IRS Migration Data Shows No Evidence of Surtax-Driven Outmigration, Highlights Affordability Challenges
*This statement has been updated to clarify what dates are covered by the data.* Boston, MA — The Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center (MassBudget) finds no indication that the Massachusetts Fair Share Amendment (FSA) surtax is driving households out of the state, according to newly available IRS migration data. The data, which covers changes of residence for taxes filed between 2022 and 2023, points to broader affordability challenges as the primary factor influencing household movement. “This latest IRS data reinforces what we have been saying: the Fair Share surtax is not prompting higher-income households to leave Massachusetts ,” said Viviana Abreu-Hernández, President of MassBudget. “In fact, the highest income households in the state – those with incomes above $200,000 – saw a decrease in net outmigration compared to the previous year.” The outmigration rate was 0.97 percent for these households in filed in 2023 compared to 1.15 percent filed in 2022, demonstrating that the surtax is not having the impact some detractors of the Fair Share had predicted. Overall, net household departures declined significantly relative to the previous year. While there were some 26,000 net households departing in the 2022 filings, that number fell to approximately 16,500 households in the ...
New Census Migration Data for 2023 – Modest Domestic Outmigration Offset by Larger International Inflow
The newly released 2023 American Community Survey (ACS) data from the U.S. Census Bureau show that Massachusetts migration patterns were largely unchanged from those seen in the 2022 ACS data: Massachusetts is gaining population from migration at a very modest rate.
Data Do Not Show Massachusetts Facing a Crisis of Outmigration
Despite recurring warnings from some quarters, none of the available official data indicate that Massachusetts is in the midst of - or moving quickly toward – a crisis of population loss to other states.
Debunking the Five Major Myths About Outmigration
Recently, multiple news articles, op-eds, and think tank reports have asserted that Massachusetts is suffering an exodus of households, particularly high-income households, fleeing to states with lower taxes. These claims about income migration are both overblown and based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the available data.
What does the amendment actually say?
The following text is the exact language that the amendment added to the state constitution. Hover over the highlighted text to see further detail on what it means and why it matters.
To provide the resources for quality public and affordable public , and for the repair and maintenance of , and , all in accordance with this paragraph shall be expended, , . In addition to the taxes on income under this Article, there shall be an additional tax of on of annual taxable in excess of $1,000,000 (one million dollars) reported on any return related to those taxes. To ensure that this additional tax continues to apply only to the commonwealth’s , this $1,000,000 (one million dollars) income level shall be adjusted annually to reflect any increases in the cost of living by the same method used for federal income tax brackets. This paragraph shall apply to all tax years beginning on or after .
