“These dynamic organizations have signed on early to the campaign and will help get the word out to Vote No on Question 1 in November,” said Maryanne Frangules and Vic DiGravio, co-chairs of the campaign. “The strength of our message – that alcohol does not deserve a special tax break – clearly appeals to many people from all walks of life and all parts of the state.”
On November 2, voters will be asked to repeal the sales tax on alcohol, which provides $110 million annually for behavioral health services for 100,000 people. The liquor industry is supporting the ballot question.
If approved, Question One would exempt alcohol from the state sales tax. Currently, sales tax exemptions are reserved for basic necessities, such as food, clothing and prescription medications. Almost every other state in the country has a sales tax on alcohol in addition to some form of excise tax.
“With Massachusetts facing a $2 billion budget shortfall in the next fiscal year, it would be fiscally irresponsible to hand a special tax break to the alcohol industry,” said Frangules and DiGravio.
For more information, visit www.NoOn1MA.com.
Surely they could spend some money on protecting the alcohol tax in MA instead of spending it all to prevent gays from marrying in CA, no?
A tax doesn’t mean demand plumments or even declines noticably…it just means that the Gov’s coffers benefit from people’s vice.
<
p>Why would a Mormon support that?
It’s not a slush fund. It is OUR coffers, in other words the “common wealth” in the literal sense of the term.
Don’t repeal the tax, and keep the money coming in for the government jobs held by our members? Just like the taxpayer funded stimulus money that prevents POTENTIAL layoffs for govenment workers who have never been laid off, so we call it job creation?
<
p>Repealing a newly created tax is now called handing out a tax break?
<
p>Do you think this will make the campaign MORE POPULAR?
<
p>Full disclosure – I don’t happen to drink for medical reasons, so I have no axe to grind on alcohol sales
on this website. Among other things, its the provider/consumer community “behind” this fight to keep the revenues for direct services and prevention programs, which for the most part are contracted out to a network of providers who work in community based settings.
<
p>
How long before the legislature diverts the money to their own uses? just like the cigarette tax?
Citation please?
I know you are the front line. You answer the night time phone call about the kid being beaten like a drum in the next apartment.
<
p>But you are forced to belong to the same union as the no-show patronage hires. The $120,000 sweetheart jobs that cannibalize the salary of THREE front line workers.
<
p>And that’s what the public is going to see – the government unions that protect hacks and fight even reasonable changes to benefit packages in bad economic times with a sense of entitlement and superiority. Like people taking raises in the Auditor’s office as a lovely parting gift that changes the pension base in perpetuity to cost exponentially more money than the actual short term cash. That belong to the same union as the front line people.
<
p>And we both know that ‘dedicated’ funding has lost its way before. Usually, the budget of the department is cut to account for the dedication, and the appropriation is then moved to other less savory areas instead of beefing up personnel or salary for the ‘dedicated’ recpients.
<
p>Judy – I asked a POLITCAL question. Do you think that government employee union endorsements is going to HELP defeat the sales tax of booze, or just remind people to take the bottle away from the drunks in the State House?
Union leaders are able to educate and mobilize their members to vote the correct way.
the strength of the message “Don’t tax my booze” is going to carry this question to victory.
All people are going to think about is New Hampshire. Ditto for the question on rolling back the overall sales tax to 3%:(
this isnt repealing a tax. the liquor industry wants to re-institute a special tax exemption from the sales tax they should have never been granted. Food, clothing, prescription medications they are necesities of life and are not subject to the sales tax. Tobacco and alcohol should be.
The reasoning for exempting alcohol and tobacco from Sales Tax is not that they are necessities for life, but rather that they are already subject to taxation at the wholesale level. If they had raised the wholesale taxes instead of removing the exemption I bet there wouldn’t have been nearly as much outcry.
Off the top of my head, gasoline does. Some money does too (estate tax).
<
p>If the tax is administered all at once or instead spread over multiple iterations, what’s the dang difference? Does it matter if I give you two $5 bills or one $10 bill?
<
p>
<
p>Yes, I understand that this isn’t a position you are taking personally.
Its generating a paltry amount of revenue but it negatively affects several small businesses from packies to pubs to restaurants and clubs. Removing this tax would be a nice shot in the arm to these struggling businesses during these tough times. I can raise my glass to that!
Repeal the sales tax on CDs. Its generating a paltry amount of revenue but it negatively affects several small businesses from CD stores to recording studios to instrument shops. Removing this tax would be a nice shot in the arm to these struggling businesses during these tough times. I can clap my hands to that!
Repeal the sales tax on shoe polish. Its generating a paltry amount of revenue but it negatively affects several small businesses from shine boxes to cobblers to cordwainers to shoe stores. Removing this tax would be a nice shot in the arm to these struggling businesses during these tough times. I can tap my feet to that!
Repeal the sales tax on ice cream scoopers. Its generating a paltry amount of revenue but it negatively affects several small businesses from ice cream shoppes to kitchen supply shops to ice cream manufacturers. Removing this tax would be a nice shot in the arm to these struggling businesses during these tough times. I can smack my lips to that!
Repeal the sales tax on paper clips. Its generating a paltry amount of revenue but it negatively affects several small businesses from office supply stores to accountants to computer IT geeks who need them to reset hardware with a pointy end. Removing this tax would be a nice shot in the arm to these struggling businesses during these tough times. I can temporarily adjoin slivers of processed pulp to that!
Funniest series of comments I’ve ever seen. I think we should set the vomit series to music and put it on you tube for ONE Mass ala Tom Learer. Stomv do you sing?
I do have over 10,000 mp3s on my iTunes though, all legally purchased; this is the extent of my musical ability. I would think that the editors and some other musically inclined folks could do a fine job with the high notes required by “pointy end”.
And twice if possible
And it’s generally understood by tax experts as bad policy. Layering taxes places a tax on a tax, hides the true cost of the tax from the public (less transparency), increases compliance costs, and increases administrative costs. If MA wants more tax from booze then the simplest and best policy option was to increase the excise tax rate.
<
p>And i’m not sure I understand your examples. How are gasoline taxes or estate taxes examples of tax pyramiding? Here we’re talking about the same government entity (the state of MA) collecting tax on the same product at two different times.
but in this particular case, there’s a general sales tax on all items, with a few exceptions:
* food
* clothes
* Rx drugs
<
p>by removing the exception for alcohol, it serves to reduce compliance cost (since now the liquor stores don’t have to program their registers to not tax booze, along with not taxing glasses and wine bottle openers and novelty whosits). Same for administrative costs — the liquor shops are already charging sales tax on some items, so now they just charge all of ’em (except lemons and limes I guess).
<
p>This policy didn’t implement a special tax — it removed a special exception, thereby making the tax code cleaner, more obvious, and easier to follow.
<
p>Finally, you’ll note that the excise tax is based on volume — meaning a $4 bottle of wine is taxed the same amount as a $4,000 bottle. That’s particularly regressive; removing the sales tax exception makes the tax far closer to ( )gressive… neither pro- nor re-. Still regressive due to the excise portion, but less so because of the sales tax portion.
<
p>
<
p>gasoline: we charge a tax on the oil (actually a few but implemented at the same time) and then we charge a gas tax, and many states also charge sales tax too.
<
p>money: we have an income tax, then we tax the estate at the end (sometimes).
Are located in Ch 64H sec 6. They go from (a) to (x)(x), meaning that MA has 50 subsections of exemptions, and several of the subsections contain multiple exemptions. It’s much more than just food, clothes, and Rx drugs. Some of my favorites – baby oil, breast prosthesis, magazines, motionpictures for commercial exhibition, vessels over 50 tons if constructed in MA, livestock and poultry feed, fertilizers, plants, fibers used for clothing, concrete mixers, printed advertising materials, film positives and negatives, rare coins or bullion, aircraft and aircraft parts, property used by a motion picture company, and property to a life sciences company. Not exactly limited to absolute necessities.
<
p>And when I talk about compliance and administration I’m not just talking about liquor stores re-programming registers. They have to collect the tax, hold the money in trust, periodically remit the money based on the amounts collected, and have some sort of internal audit/compliance measures to ensure the correct amount us remitted. And the state has to periodically collect the tax, identify which portion is from alcohol sales since that amount is dedicated, and have administrative measures to make sure the correct amounts are remitted. It’s not insurmountable, but it’s not simple either. And it was easily avoidable by just boosting the excise instead of applying the sales tax.
<
p>As to your progressive/regressive arguments – so what? If the point is to pay for prevention and treatment then the best way to tax it is by amount. A $10 bottle of 12% wine has the same health affect as a $100 bottle right?
<
p>MA exempts other items subject to excise taxes, gasoline for example. There are a few states that pyramid the tax on gasoline, but the vast majority do not. They just raise the gas tax if they want a higher tax on gasoline.
If ‘breast prosthesis’ is covered, why not ‘hair prosthesis’?
<
p>The Hair Prosthesis Club for Men!
<
p>Yeah, I get the cancer/mastectomy argument. But there are medical reasons to lose hair, too.
<
p>And the breast prosthesis isn’t exempted only for medical purposes.
I had a conversation with a lobbyist who was working in CT a few years back. He told me that the CT sales tax exemption on wigs came about as a result of a hearing where several women with alopecia told stories about losing their hair, and then all pulled off their wigs in an emotional climax. Legislators were crying, and the bill was unanimous out of committee. And now wigs are sales tax free in CT.
<
p>I wonder if the MA exemption on breast prosthesis came out of a similar hearing…
A long line of women, including sisters, wives and daughters of committee members did not have to take off their shirts, or even show the before and after pictures. 🙂
…back when Terry Murray was Chair.
<
p>Without a medical necessity clause, it couldn’t move out of committee – and the support mysteriously evaporated.
In 06 we let the packies bully us into stopping grocery and drug stores from carrying liquor like that do in every other state. MA is ridiculously dry and behind the times on this one. We should have liquor in grocery stores, drug stores, and easy licenses for establishments to get. Also BYOB would be nice. The one thing Chicago has on Boston is that Boston was founded by a bunch of Calvinists while Chicago was founded by Germans and Irishmen. I think we know which group had the better time.
I’d just assume leave the tax on booze as it is at this time.
<
p>I DO drink alcohol, and I don’t have a puritanical bone in my body.
<
p>If revenue from booze taxes goes down, some other tax will have to be raised, or aid to cities and towns will have to be cut.
<
p>At this time, I just can’t see the great good in “shuffling the deck” by cutting booze taxes, making a budget shortfall, and hiking some other tax.
<
p>I also believe that the booze tax should be about revenue and not about social engineering.
All governments in the real world have some source of tax revenue to maintain themselves.
<
p>Are their smug, puritanical, uptight people who want to social engineer with taxes? Yes.
<
p>But they can be right wing or left wing, Democratic or Republican.
<
p>I’m not one of these types.
<
p>I want to legalize drugs and prostitution, and I defend people who smoke cigarettes.
<
p>It’s just that, something has to be taxed for revenue.
<
p>Why is cutting the tax on booze (and raising it on something else somewhere) so wonderful?
<
p>If there is no great benefit, I would just assume keep the devil we know.
The idea of repealing the alcohol tax when we have had years of budget cuts is crazy to me. I am happy to pay that small tax in exchange for the services that it provides.
<
p>I hope the editors consider endorsing the “Cmt Against the Repeal of the Alcohol Tax”. I also think the cmt would be a great addition to the BMG ActBlue page.
<
p>There is a real chance that Question 1 will pass, and those who oppose its passage need to step up.
I’d rather be snarky in a bar than on a blog thank you very much.