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Testimony to the Joint Committee on Revenue on the Governor’s Tax Proposals
Testimony presented to the Joint Committee on Revenue on March 28, 2023, regarding Governor Healey’s tax proposals.
Taking Measure of the Governor’s Tax Plan
The Governor’s proposal would provide benefits to households across the income spectrum, but by far the largest benefits would accrue to a small number of very wealthy families.
Governor’s Estate Tax Plan Is Costly and Gives Biggest Breaks to Largest Estates – Better Options Exist
During the current legislative session, lawmakers will consider a number of proposals for changing the Massachusetts estate tax. Two proposals are compared here – one put forward by Governor Healey (H.42), and another, S.1784/H.2960, offered in the Senate and House.
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It’s About Time: Modernizing the Massachusetts Overtime Law Would Help 435,000 Salaried Workers
Everyone deserves fair pay for the hours they work, and the freedom to have a personal life away from the job. That’s why we have overtime laws, which require that most workers be paid time-and-a-half for every hour they work over 40 in a given week. For salaried workers, however, these laws no longer provide the protection they used to.
A Promise of Equity: Designing a Debt-Free Higher Education Program That Works for Everyone
As Massachusetts considers several proposals to make college tuition-and-fee-free or debt-free, this paper looks at how different design elements of such a guarantee could affect access and affordability for students from less wealthy families, students of color, and immigrant students in Massachusetts.
Why Highest Incomes in Massachusetts Receive Most Tax Benefits from Charitable Deduction
Even considering how higher-income households have more money to give away, the tax benefits of charitable tax deductions are heavily skewed toward the top.
Analyzing the Governor’s Budget for FY 2020
The Governor’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 budget proposal provides modest increases in funding for public education, human services, and several other important investments. This new funding does not, in many cases, reverse deep cuts imposed across the state budget after the tax cuts of the late 1990s and early 2000s — despite a decade of expansion in the economy. Lost revenue from tax cuts has limited the Commonwealth’s ability to adequately fund education, infrastructure, and other building blocks of healthy communities and a strong economy.
Five Things to Look for in the FY 2020 Budget
Anyone who has set foot in a public school, driven on a road, or gone to a public park has been touched by the state budget. What we fund in our state budget reflects what we deem important.
None of these essential services would be possible without the revenue to pay for it. Further, it is important to consider whether the state is raising revenue fairly.
As the Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 budget debates kick off this week, here are five questions to consider.
14 Options for Raising Progressive Revenue
How to collect enough revenue to pay for the things we accomplish together as a Commonwealth and how to collect that revenue fairly are questions that every community and every state need to examine. This paper describes 14 ways the Commonwealth could generate substantial new revenue in a manner that makes our tax system more progressive and would not require changing the state constitution.
Impact of the Increase in the Massachusetts Minimum Wage to $12
These infographics show the impacts of the increase in the Massachusetts minimum wage on January 1, 2019, from $11 to $12 per hour.
