Doug Howgate, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, said consideration of Healey’s tax proposal needed to account for more than the surtax alone. Between fiscal 2015 and 2022, Massachusetts tax revenue increased more than 60%, from $24.7 billion to $41.1 billion, which Howgate said well outpaced a “normal” revenue growth rate.
And if that move will generate a big backlash, you wouldn't know it from the reaction of the business-backed Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation.
"The most important thing is that as we collect more tax revenue than any reasonable person would have expected, we're giving back that tax revenue to taxpayers," MTF president Doug Howgate said.
Doug Howgate, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, said regardless of the final plan there is a sense of urgency for Beacon Hill to move ahead on a tax-relief package, with census data showing the Bay State has lost more than 110,000 residents to other states in the past three years.
In a written statement, Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation President Doug Howgate said, “The commonwealth lost 110,000 residents to other states over the last three years. Sensible and sustainable changes to the tax code, like those reflected in the proposals put forward by the governor and now the House, are not only affordable but critical first steps to helping address the factors that make it hard for families, businesses and investments to thrive in Massachusetts.
Doug Howgate, the president of the nonpartisan Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, responded to the news that the House would consider tax reform with assurances the plan was both affordable and necessary.
“We’re seeing in the numbers that outmigration is a real challenge for Massachusetts, affordability is a real challenge,” said Doug Howgate, head of the business-backed Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. The House plan “is not going to solve all that ails us, but the individual components make sense.”
Today, the House Committee on Ways and Means released their tax relief proposal. The plan includes 7 major provisions and carries a fiscal impact of $654 million in FY 2024. When fully-phased in after 3 years, the annualized cost of the proposal is $1.1 billion.
Though significantly larger, the proposal builds off the tax relief packages passed by the House and Senate in 2022, as well as Governor Healey’s $987 million tax package.
Gov. Maura Healey has placed meaningful tax reform atop the policy agenda this session, with a $987 million package that was filed in conjunction with her inaugural budget. As we laid out in a recent report, significant tax relief is not only affordable, but even more critical than it was a year ago.
"Having a way to make sure we are reassessing elements of our tax code is always a good idea," said Doug Howgate, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. "In some cases it makes sense to have a sunset date. The state can say let's try this for a few years, and see if it does what we want it to do."
But statutory sunset dates can also create challenges, he said, particularly when individuals or businesses are counting on tax expenditures to plan and make long-term decisions about investments.
Doug Howgate, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, supported the governor's bill. In prepared testimony, he told Revenue Committee members that while the state's economic and policy landscape has changed in three key ways since the House and Senate walked away from last summer's proposal, "each of those changes calls for more significant and impactful tax relief than the proposals from 2022."
