The Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance made the following statement today regarding Governor Baker’s continued refusal to extend the state tax deadline to mirror the extension already approved by the federal government.

“The Governor and State House leaders are telling the public to stay in their homes, with the one exception—to get their taxes done. For a lot of people, especially older people, this is a process that involves multiple visits to an accountant’s office to exchange documents and sign returns.  Given that they’ve ordered the shutdown of thousands of businesses they’ve deemed “non-essential” this week, the continued demand that people leave their homes is pretty tone deaf. This really is not a good look for our state’s leaders, especially since a majority of state’s have already mirrored the Trump administration’s gracious extension,” stated Paul D. Craney, spokesperson for Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance.

Today’s statement by the Governor comes one day after MassFiscal sent a letter and issued a statement to State House leaders calling for them to temporarily suspend the meals tax, temporarily suspend the sales tax on online purchases, and extend the state tax filing deadline to mirror the federal extension.

“Anything the Governor can do to help people keep more of their money at this time should be pursued. By extending the deadline to mirror the Federal level, people will have more funds to pay for essential costs in these trying times. What’s more, people won’t be forced to leave their homes and risk infection to comply with the demands of a tone-deaf state government. This will end up saving the state money in the long term,” concluded Craney.