The ONE Massachusetts Leadership Team voted in favor of a campaign for new revenues in the 2011 state budget. ONE Massachusetts network members are calling on our legislators to close tax loopholes that cost the state money and close the budget gap, which is threatening our communities with drastic budget cuts.
We’re asking the Legislature to back to following revenue options:
- Restore of the tax on dividends and interest to 12 percent, with provisions to exempt moderate-income seniors (+/- $500 million)
- Cap of the Film Tax Credit for one year to save $75 million
- Limiting Life Sciences Tax Credits by $5 million
- Repeal of the Aircraft Sales Tax exemption ($4.5 million)
- Removing the sales tax exemption for cigars and smokeless tobacco ($15 million)
- Sales tax on candy and soda ($51 million)
- Support for transparency and accountability measures advance by Revenue Committee chairmen Ben Downing and Jay Kaufman and Gov. Patrick
Organizations that have signed on to this campaign include:
- ONE Mass. Leadership Team
- Health Care for All
- Mass. Teachers Association
- Coalition Against Poverty
- Coalition for Social Justice
- Boston Parent Organizing Network
- Mass. Community Action Network
- Mass. Society of Professors, UMass Amherst
- Mass. Home Care
- Yes! Northampton
- Mass. Public Health Association
- Health Care for All
- Mass. Senior Action Council
- Public Higher Education Network of Mass.
To sign on to this campaign, as an individual or representing an organization, click this link. To view our campaign statement, click this link.
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I wholeheartedly endorse what One Massachusetts and its coalition partners are doing. Who else has the courage to stand up and, well, say the obvious: we have to raise progressive revenues so that we can build the Commonwealth we want and need. Especially important is the coalition’s call for returning (not increasing, just returning) the rate on dividends and interest income to where it was before 1999 — 12%, instead of today’s 5.3%. That part of the income tax is almost completely paid by those making over $200,000 dollars — it is the purest kind of wealth tax we have (because we don’t have a progressive income tax).
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p>The choice is starkly clear: the Democrats can choose to cut local aid, higher education, Mass Health, or they can choose to ask the wealthiest in the state to contribute a bit more to preserve what makes this state great.