Massachusetts To Vote On Proposal To Eliminate State Income Tax

New York Times:

Given the opportunity to get out of paying state income tax, who wouldn't jump at the chance?

Certainly Ruth Gregoire would. Ms. Gregoire, 71, a retired employee of a fire sprinkler company, dipped into chocolate ice cream at Swirls and Scoops and pronounced the no-tax idea "very nice."

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[jarethmeil]

as for our great schools, more and more services that were free in the past the school now charges us. we pay cash for the bus to and from school. lunch prices just went up. after school activities cost $50 per student. for chess club. one teacher, 10 chess boards. for computer club, one teacher, computers and internet that are already there and cheap crap Dells to boot after they dumped the Apples for a cheaper upgrade. the list goes on. school field trips are paid for by US per student, not the school. teachers are let go every year due to budget cuts. we all know the teachers aren't getting paid enough. i probably get paid more teaching kids guitar lessons. no spanish class in northshore MA? not good at all. every wednesday my children bring home a folder containing the news of the week and announcements of upcoming events. what it turns out to be is the collection folder. the majority of notices are asking for some type of payment for different groups and fund raisers. it gets to a point where i don't even open it anymore. the middle school can't afford a safe place for the children to play during recess and cage them in the tennis court to wrestle on the "hot top". yeah my taxes are well spent!

[jarethmeil]

first thing first. income tax is unconstitutional. second. do we know where our MA income taxes actually go? schools? roads? bridges? the Wars? troopers? state medical coverage? state welfare? paying interest to the FED? the pike? the big dig?
the garden? third. lets talk MA.
most services we pay for separately from our income tax, such as: excise tax on our cars. that's right, every year we cough up cash to the government because we own a car. we already paid sales tax on it. the mass turnpike keeps going up on tolls. we were told after so many years there would be NO tolls. that date passed years ago. not to mention mandatory health insurance! guaranteed customer base to private corporations. thats MA answer to the healthcare problem. what a joke. all this does is force employers to hire temp employees, give them no benefits, no security, no respect, no hope to support a family.

[fredlonsdale]

Remember the Nixon landslide crushing McGovern followed by the Watergate scandal? One of the popular bumper stickers of that time was "Don't blame me, I am from Massachuse­tts." Seems that may apply today too!

I kinda like the place. I think I will stay stick around here, taxes and all. I just wish they never started the Big Dig.

[ebanks84]

Income taxes are illegal anyway. Massachusetts is doing the right thing. Check out Amendment 16 of the Constitution to see that income taxes were never ratified by 2/3rds of the states.

[Uosdwis]

TANSTAAFL, people, TANSTAAFL.

[jmpurser]

Yeah but everybody is sure there's some way to get somebody ELSE to pay for it.

[mikep007]

People for the proposition have no idea how to make up the deficit it will cause.. There are no real ideas. Perhaps 12.5 billion a year is much and they can work ways to reduce that to put some money back in people's pockets, but eliminating it is foolish. I think a property tax freeze (no increases), utilities commission freeze would help. The other option is just lunacy! Then of course, that group has no real answers or solutions, just a sounding horn.

[vippy]

Isn't income tax unconstitutional?

[bpowell1]

I lived in Nevada and they have no state taxes and they seem to get by very well. No state will never not have complete taxes. You pay taxes when you go to the store and you buy things. Those are billions of annual revenue. So it can work.

[mikep007]

Oh Nevada that has all the casinos that fund stuff for the state programs..­. ?! Sorry, not every state has Casinos or amusement parks!

[raker]

Taxachusetts is a 30-year-old joke that means nothing today. There can't be too much concern that this idiotic referendum will pass because I haven't seen a single ad on TV or in the paper urging a no vote. Libraries are actively urging no votes because without taxes they're doomed. Wouldn't that be a feather in Massachusetts's cap. Referenda should be non-binding to protect us from our nutty neighbors. We have state senators and representatives to make legislation.

[frantaylor]

Massachusetts is actually a pretty well run state, and the state government is pretty effective. The Mass Turnpike is rated the best quality highway in the US, and it's one of the safest. Their highways in general appear to be in much better shape than their neighbors'. Mass. is really quite good at forcing you to pay your parking tickets. They've learned that vigorous pursual of scofflaws is an effective revenue generator.

I'm not even sure if Mass. does have higher taxes, but the quality of living is high if you can get over the high housing prices.

[dutchman]

Mass ranks 23rd in terms of state and local tax burden. In overall tax burden it's higher (sorry, I don't know exactly where) because it has the 3rd highest per capita income, and federal income tax is therefore higher, on average, than the rest of the nation.

And Mass is a pretty well-run place. Even its Republican Governors (with the huge exception of Romney) have been at least reasonably competent. That said, I'm happy Patrick is now in the corner office.

Just don't pick up too many driving habits there - it will spoil the rest of the country for you.

BTW - anyone remember Billy Bulger's Annual St. Patty's Day Roast? Some of the best political humor. Ever.

[Doofus]

Looks like this is an effort by the Massachusetts Libertarians,
calling themselves the 'Committee For Small Government',
and the usual suspects, 'Citizens For Limited Taxation'.

Send them some money, they'll put on some ads.

[Bitsko]

I'm very curious to see if the citizens of my beloved home commonwealth actually vote for this in the middle of a depression.

[dutchman]

Pols on Beacon Hill are concerned that it might. Never under-estimate the greed and stupidity of the average voter. The saving grace will be that the Legislature will overturn it, as they did for the voter-approved rollback to 5%. That said, I'm not voting for it, and none of my friends (mostly lefties like me) will either.

[Chris]

For all thos ethat are agianst this...ple­ase name one servie that the State of MA has that the state of NH does not. NH the land of no income and no sales tax. The stat ethe officials in MA tell there welfare receipients to go to.

For those that are worried abotu property taxes, MA has higher property tax rates than NH.

But no owrries the MA state legislature will once again decide that is knows best and either keep the tax rate or raise them. They have ignored ballott before so why would they honor it this time.

PS big dig tunnel tolls may go to $8. Thank you John and Ted.

[frantaylor]

Go ahead and try to catch a train in New Hampshire. You are SOL unless you live on the seacoast.

Just try to get a decent education in NH. NH has the worst public schools and the best private schools in the country. Go figure.

I live in New Hampshire, and I visit Boston regularly The Big Dig was expensive but Boston is a much more smoothly running city now. The Manchester airport is doomed because Logan is now so very easy to get in and out of.

New Hampshire is just now getting around to adding a third lane to I-93. The congestion at rush hour is outrageous, this is LONG overdue.

New Hampshire is in many ways a very backwards state. Really the only thing they do well is snow removal.

[vippy]

and someone called it a well run state LOL.

[dutchman]

I did - if you look at most measures, such as health care, educational quality, crime, income and net worth, Mass does better than the national average. Sure there's room for improvement (for example, Boston's public schools are terrible), but the state as a whole does quite well, especially when compared against a lot of red states.

I should know - I spent time in both Mass and Nebraska (how's THAT for a contrast?), and in NE taxes and fees are much higher, and in my experience, the government is far less capable. I even feel less safe in Omaha than I do in Boston.

[Ohg]

Do you all really want to know what is wrong with the Republican Party - we have some ideas. ..........­.
http://thefiresidepost.com/2008/09/26/subliminal-bush/

[iheardthisbefore]

My comment to all this nonsense is where is my FREE LUNCH?

What? What was that?
You mean I HAVE TO PAY FOR MY LUNCH?

Well, never mind.....
I will have the filet du beouf ala Wellington, please...
oh, and please bring a wine list, won't you?

[gevan]

Why shouldn't they have the option of eliminating the sales tax as well. Perhaps they'd like to vote to eliminate the state government and all expenditures. It could turn out to be a veritable Boston Massacre.

[NTO08]

Are the states that have no sales tax doing worse than ones that do?

[frantaylor]

Things are really not going so hot here in New Hampshire. We would shrivel up and blow away if we were not absorbing some of Massachusetts' warmth.

[RealHRCFansVoteObama]

As a homeowner without a mortgage or utility bills (off the grid), the biggest pain in my wallet is the property tax.

I accept it because I love our town's schools, but we pay it regardless of our income. We grow a lot of food, so one of us losing a job means less money but also less income tax. I can even avoid sales tax by buying less crap. But it never means less property tax. It's the one thing that keeps us from being recession proof.

[NoBailoutEver]

YES on 1

[superrobot]

Lol sorry, dude, I like our schools always ranking top 3.

[weekilter]

People seem to think that government runs on good wishes and thin air. Revenue has to be collected in some way for the government to run and run programs. I was just hit up today for a nice transportation measure when I was out and about. They want to finance it through yet another addition to the sales tax. We here (in Seattle) pay one of the highest sales tax in the nation (just shy of 10%.) Those who want improvements and want the government to run think that all they have to do is make another point's addition to the sales tax. It's very regressive yet no governor in their right mind would ever *dream* of asking citizens of this state to put forth an income tax. They'd be drummed right out of office at the next election. If you want programs they have to be paid for somehow or else you have to eliminate programs and cut back. It doesn't get magically paid from nothing.