Chairman 'certain' there won't be a sales tax holiday
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State lawmakers are expected to opt out of a tax-free weekend for the second year in a row.
Consumers will get no break on the sales tax from the state of Massachusetts this summer, as lawmakers opt for the second year in a row to forego a tax holiday weekend.
Revenue Committee Chairman Jay Kaufman confirmed that August will pass without what has been in recent years a semiannual tradition of suspending the sales tax for one weekend.
"I would say that's certain. I don't see how there could be one since there's no possibility of us having a hearing and a session to vote for one, so there will be no sales tax holiday this year," Kaufman, a Lexington Democrat, told the News Service Monday.
House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate President Stan Rosenberg had strongly indicated the sales tax holiday was not on their agenda after Gov. Charlie Baker tried to revive the issue last week by filing his own sales tax holiday legislation.
After lawmakers adjourned their final formal sessions of the summer in late July without taking up a sales tax holiday bill, Baker last Wednesday filed a bill to suspend the 6.25 percent tax on purchases under $2,500 the weekend of Aug. 19-20.
"We've heard from a lot of folks who said to us that this is really important to them," Baker said in a WBZ NewsRadio interview last week. "It's important to downtowns, it's important to main streets, and we just think it's the right thing to do."
Lawmakers left Beacon Hill with sales tax holiday bills idling in committees and Baker, by filing his bill after lawmaker recessed, was apparently counting on legislators being able to pass his controversial bill in informal sessions, which is unlikely since some lawmakers strongly oppose the idea.
Baker filed his bill on the same day that he signed new temporary assessments on employers that critics have labeled a new tax. The assessments are part of a new state budget that will also not deliver a Jan. 1 income tax reduction that lawmakers just a few months ago believed was inevitable.
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