Massachusetts Begins Round Two In Its Fight To Tax Millionaires

Activists in Massachusetts were disappointed when the state’s Supreme Court struck down a ballot initiative last year to increase taxes on millionaires. But they’re already gearing up for round two. Their second try for the Fair Share Amendment – also known as the millionaire’s tax – began with a legislative hearing Thursday.

Two hundred people, led by the Raise Up Massachusetts Coalition, packed the statehouse for a hearing on the Fair Share Amendment. The proposal, first brought about as a citizen’s amendment that would have appeared on the 2018 ballot, would impose an additional 4 percent tax on incomes over 1 million.  The resulting revenue would fund public education and transportation infrastructure.

But a surprising and crushing decision by the state’s high court last fall held that the people’s ballot petition could not go forward. The state restricts citizens’ amendments from combining multiple objectives – in this case, the tax itself and the stipulation on where the money is spent.

But Raise Up Massachusetts won’t abandon the millionaire tax. Now, the coalition has turned to the legislative sponsors to introduce the Fair Share Amendment to change the state’s constitution, which would allow the initiative to be put on the ballot without any restrictions.

More than 20 state legislators stood before the revenue committee to state their support for the Fair Share Amendment.  Senator Lewis, a lead sponsor, told the committee that Massachusetts has “an upside-down tax system, where the wealthiest pay a lower share than the poorest households.”  Senator Lewis told the crowd that lower and middle income families are tapped out by the high cost of housing, health care, and managing multiple jobs.  The FSA “asks households earning over 1 million to pay just a little more,” Lewis said, to help ease the burden. “We cannot build the economy on the backs of low and middle income families” said Representative O’Day, another lead sponsor.

The Raise Up Massachusetts coalition had its own members give testimony, including labor and religious leaders, economic analysts, and community leaders. Alex Hoyt, a public school teacher with the Massachusetts Teachers Association, spoke about the dire state of school funding. Hoyt said he was allotted only one sheet of paper per student per day, and asked whether anyone could perform their duties with one sheet of paper per day. He was laid off last year along with a third of the core teaching staff at a public school due to budget cuts.