Business groups say no to tax review in letter

Business groups want lawmakers to cut a Senate plan to review the cost and effectiveness of tax expenditures.

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As lawmakers work to craft the final fiscal year 2018 budget, some of the state's largest employer organizations are imploring them to cut a Senate plan to review the cost and effectiveness of tax expenditures.

In a letter to the six lawmakers reconciling the House and Senate's divergent roughly $40.3 billion budgets, executives from the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, Associated Industries of Massachusetts, Massachusetts Society of Certified Public Accountants, Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation and Massachusetts Business Roundtable said they "strongly oppose" the proposal because it will weaken taxpayer confidence and result in fewer people complying with tax laws.

"We remain concerned that the broad access to tax returns and related information would undermine taxpayer privacy and erode confidence in our tax system," the letter said. "Additionally, we believe a separate commission is unnecessary as the Legislature already has that authority and the Joint Committee on Revenue already has that expertise."

To replicate the steps the Department of Revenue takes to protect confidential taxpayer information for the commission, the groups said, "would be difficult, and perhaps impossible."

The Senate budget (S 2076) contains an outside section creating "a tax expenditure review commission that shall examine and evaluate the administration, effectiveness and fiscal impact of tax expenditures ... and any other corporate or other business excise tax expenditures."

Senate Ways and Means Chairwoman Karen Spilka told reporters last month the commission "every five years on a rolling basis would review all of our tax expenditures, and take a look and see what is the return on investment and make recommendations to the Legislature."

She said a similar proposal was included in the Senate's budget a year ago but was eliminated once the House and Senate began conference committee negotiations.