Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Statement on New Tax Increases
Today I released the following statement regarding
the implementation of a 3-cents-per-gallon gas tax increase (with future
increases tied to inflation), and a new 6.25 percent sales tax on computer
software upgrades:
“Today, people who
are working hard to pay their bills and employers who are trying to keep their
businesses afloat in a stagnant economy are being hit with hundreds of millions
of dollars in new taxes, taxes that could have and should have been avoided. These sweeping new taxes represent the
outcome of a choice the Legislature didn’t have to make, and now Massachusetts
consumers and businesses are going to be forced to live with the consequences
of that choice for years to come.
Both the House and Senate Republican Caucuses
offered comprehensive alternative proposals during the transportation finance
debate in April that would have paved the way for long-term sustainability,
reliability and efficiencies within our transportation infrastructure without
resorting to massive increases in taxes and spending. Republicans offered a series of reforms that
sought to capture the billions of dollars in promised savings from the 2009
Transportation Reform Act that have gone unrealized, while increasing the
efficiency and integrity of the state’s transportation system and expanding
partnership opportunities with the private sector, but those reforms were
largely ignored.
In our quest to finance transportation improvements, we should not have forgotten our responsibility to protect the interests of the taxpayers and the state’s economy. Unfortunately, we have lost sight of our obligation to the taxpayers, and now consumers and employers are left with a regressive gas tax increase that is running on auto-pilot, with no legislative accountability, and a new tax on computer software upgrades that the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation warns ‘strikes at the heart of the innovation economy and will stifle job creation for years to come’.”
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