The Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance today criticized Governor Maura Healey’s sweeping local option tax hike proposal, which will be heard today at 10:00 a.m. at the State House before the Joint Committee on Revenue. The bill would give cities and towns across Massachusetts broad new authority to raise taxes on residents and small businesses.

Under the Governor’s plan, municipalities would be allowed to:

• 
  Increase the local meals tax by over 30%, from 0.75% to 1%
  • Raise the local lodging tax up to 7% (7.5% in Boston)
  • Impose a new surcharge of up to 5% on motor vehicle excise bills, effectively tripling them

MassFiscal is launching a Call to Action campaign, urging taxpayers to contact the Governor and their lawmakers in opposition to the proposed tax hike. The Call to Action may be found at http://www.massfiscal.org/action. Taxpayers can easily send an email into the State House and share the link to others to take the Call to Action. MassFiscal hopes enough push back is sent in to persuade lawmakers to reject the Governor’s call for higher taxes. A similar tax hike scheme was proposed by the Governor during the last legislative session and MassFiscal coordinated thousands of emails from taxpayers into the State House in opposition.

“At a time when working families are already struggling to keep up with inflation, rising energy costs, and housing expenses, Governor Healey’s response is to make it even easier for local governments to raise taxes. Instead of cutting waste or resetting state spending priorities, she’s passing the buck to local boards and pretending it’s some kind of major reform,” said Paul Diego Craney, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance.

Despite record-breaking state spending, Governor Healey’s administration has allowed local aid to cities and towns to remain flat for consecutive budgets, leaving municipalities to fend for themselves. Meanwhile, the state has devoted billions of dollars to fund housing, shelter, and services for migrants and new arrivals.

“Governor Healey continues to prioritize unchecked spending on the state’s costly migrant programs while cities and towns are told to raise their own taxes to cover basic services. It’s completely backward. Taxpayers expect the state to take care of essential responsibilities first, not to funnel money into new programs while ignoring local needs,” said Craney.

The Joint Committee on Revenue will take public testimony on the bill today at the State House. MassFiscal is urging lawmakers to reject any plan that gives local officials broader authority to impose new taxes.

“Massachusetts doesn’t have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem. The Governor should focus on fiscal discipline and reform, not new ways to nickel and dime residents. The answer to record spending isn’t more taxation, it’s responsible budgeting,” noted Craney.

“The potential tripling of the vehicle excise tax could mean taxpayers and small businesses see huge increases in their once a year bill. Only in Massachusetts, do you pay taxes on the income you earn for a vehicle purchase, then a sales tax to purchase the vehicle, and a once a year tax for simply owning the vehicle,” closed Craney.