The challenge to Healey’s approach represents one of the first tests of how millionaire tax revenues are being spent, and whether the will of the voters is being honored.
Taxes and Budget Issues
Posted inBy The Numbers
State tax revenues lag slightly behind projections
The Department of Revenue said Thursday that it collected $4.518 billion in September — $331 million, or 7.9 percent more, than what was collected during September 2023, but $29 million, or 0.6 percent, below the monthly benchmark.
Posted inState Government
Proposals would boost cost of parking, package delivery, rideshares
One of the initiatives would raise fees on rideshares; the other two would impose a new sales tax on privately owned parking spaces and assess a new fee on all retail deliveries.
Posted inState Government
Healey signs state budget, goes light on vetoes
The governor signed nearly all of the budget the Legislature sent her 10 days ago, approving all but three of the 261 policy proposals lawmakers padded it with.
Posted inPolitics
With session nearing end, Wu’s property tax shift bill on the move
The proposal cleared the Legislature’s Committee on Revenue a week after lawmakers raised questions about it at a hearing.
Posted inState Government
Budget deal includes free community college and bus rides plus online lottery
Many of the biggest eye-catchers in the deal would commit significant funds toward reducing or eliminating costs Massachusetts residents face, including another year of free school meals, tuition-free community college, no-charge rides on the state’s 15 regional transit authorities, and making permanent a pandemic-era Commonwealth Cares for Children (C3) grant program that launched with federal dollars.
Posted inState Government
Budget, gun control bills near finish line
Lawmakers would need to ship the final budget to Healey by Sunday to guarantee their ability to push through any spending or policy ideas over the governor’s objection.
Posted inGovernment
Wu tells lawmakers potential residential tax spike ‘keeps me up at night’
City Hall is seeking to keep that 60-40 balance and mitigate an increase next year in homeowner tax bills that could come as valuations for commercial property fall, driven by the downtown still seeing less foot traffic, on top of office vacancies and some continuing to work from home in Covid pandemic’s aftermath.
Posted inPolitics
Political Notebook: ‘Tool kit’ transportation revenues | Cold shoulder for Wu tax plan | Healey ethics disclosure
Hayes Morrison, the undersecretary of transportation, gave an update on the transportation revenue task force’s progress at this week’s MassDOT board meeting that made it sound as if it started pretty much from scratch using a very touchy-feely approach.
Posted inState Government
Millionaire surtax revenues far exceed expectations
Massachusetts has collected about $1.8 billion from a voter-approved surtax on the state’s highest earners through the first nine months of the fiscal year, the Department of Revenue said Monday in a quarterly report.