Senate President Stanley Rosenberg on Wednesday implored the business community not to pursue a cut in the state sales tax on the 2018 ballot, arguing that it would further compromise the state’s fiscal health.
Rosenberg on Wednesday called for an overhaul to the state’s tax code, starting with the 4 percent surtax, which is expected to go to voters in November 2018. Without articulating details, he said the state should also look at its property tax and again establishing a service tax.
Speaking to a breakfast crowd of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce in Boston’s seaport, Rosenberg pushed for a proposed 4 percent surtax on income above $1 million but warned that a sales tax cut would negate the revenue from the extra tax on higher earners.
“If the fair share tax passed and the sales tax [cut] passed, we’d lose about the same amount of revenue we’d gain and all the revenue we’d gain will be earmarked for education and transportation,” he said. “And we’d lose all that other money that’s being used to fund other projects in the budget at this point, which as I described, is out of structural balance.”
Frustrated by the rising share of tax-free sales transacted online, retailers last month said they are considering the launch of a ballot campaign in 2018 to lower the 6.25 percent sales tax. The Legislature raised the former 5 percent rate in 2009.
