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How Much Would a Transfer Fee on Expensive Real Estate Generate for Your City or Town?
A downloadable, interactive Excel dashboard that provides data for each of Massachusetts’ 351 cities and towns on how much revenue a community could raise by collecting an additional real estate transfer fee on the sale of more expensive homes.
Preventing High-Income Tax Avoidance to Protect Education and Transportation
Problems with potential high-income tax avoidance can be solved by following many other states that require that taxpayers file their state income taxes with the same status they use on their federal taxes.
Memo to Governor Healey on Ways to Ensure Effective Implementation of the Fair Share Amendment
As Massachusetts voters have amended the state constitution to include a 4 percent surtax on taxable income over $1 million, MassBudget would like to offer policy suggestions to assist the Commonwealth in protecting this revenue and ensuring that it is directed to education and transportation, as specified in the amendment.
Letter to Governor-elect Healey and Lieutenant Governor-elect Driscoll on a Family Tax Credit
A letter to Governor-elect Healey and Lieutenant Governor-elect Driscoll on a consolidating different family tax supports into one simpler, fully refundable Family Tax Credit.
“Excess” as Mirage: How the 62F Tax Cap Distorts Our View of Massachusetts Tax Revenue
The 1986 tax cap law, also known as “62F,” artificially limits the amount of tax revenue available to address priorities like affordable, quality childcare, safer public transportation, and affordable housing. Moreover, there are flaws in the 62F law and its underlying formula. 62F tells a story about revenue in Massachusetts, but it is misleading.
Fair Share Would Increase Total Tax Rates Only Modestly for Most with Incomes Over $1 Million
Because the Fair Share surtax would apply a 4 percent surtax only to the portion of a household’s taxable income above $1 million, the total tax rate of the vast majority of Fair Share-affected filers would be much lower than the top rate of 9 percent.
The Fair Share Millionaire Tax and Home Sales: What 2021 Data Shows
Based on industry data from the Warren Group on home sales in Massachusetts, previous analysis has shown how rare it is that a sale might generate taxable capital gains of $1 million or more. But what does the data say about home sales that might have created taxable income over $1 million in 2021?
The Myth of the One-Year Middle Class Millionaire
“One-time” occurrences of $1 million income are relatively rare overall, and in fact much rarer for the middle-class. It is far more common for tax filers who exceed $1 million in annual income to do so year over year. An examination of available data suggests that when a middle-class taxpayer sells their small business or home, they would be highly unlikely to have a taxable income over $1 million, the point at which additional income would be subject to the new proposed tax under ballot Question 1 (Fair Share).
Very Few Small Businesses Sell for More Than $1 Million; Even Fewer Would be Subject to Fair Share
Will small business owners be subject to the proposed Fair Share tax if and when they sell their businesses? Very unlikely.
Even Among Retirees with High Wealth, Few Will Pay the Fair Share Tax
The proposed “millionaire tax” only applies to the portion of a taxpayer’s annual taxable income over $1 million. For many retirees, much of their income is not subject to the income tax and therefore not subject to an additional tax on income over $1 million. And wealth, such as personal savings and investments, are not subject to the income tax. Even when wealth is sold to generate additional financial gains, this income is often tax-exempt or shielded by widely used deductions.
