Mayor Wu’s Boston Tax Bill Fails to Pass in Time & Natural Gas is Safe

As the Massachusetts Legislature’s Joint Committee on Bonding, Capital Expenditures, and State Assets hears Governor Maura Healey’s housing bond bill, which includes a tax increase in the form of a local option transfer tax on home sales over a million dollars, the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance criticized the proposal as counterproductive.

As you know, MassFiscal has ardently supported many of the reforms the Baker administration has proposed over the years. However, the Governor’s current budget proposal included a 50% increase to the real estate excise tax—to fund climate change solutions—MassFiscal was quick to object. Our 501(c)3 sister organization, the Fiscal Alliance Foundation, even polled residents and found taxpayers were not supportive of this tax.

Since the poll was conducted, the legislature has named new chairs of the important Ways and Means Committee. This committee is tasked with adopting and advancing tax policy, including the Governor’s tax increase proposal. Now that the pieces are finally set, MassFiscal is pleased to announce that mailboxes across our state have started to fill up with our first educational mailer of 2019.  In all, tens of thousands of households across the Commonwealth are receiving our first mailer and many more are receiving its digital counterpart on their computers and phones.