Governor Patrick hints at additional taxes

Massachusetts Governor De

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick recently signed the state's FY2010 budget. The budget contained roughly $1 billion dollar in additional taxes, including a 25% increase in the sales tax rate. The increase (from 5% to 6.25%), was implemented in part to offset a previously planned increase in Massachusetts Turnpike tolls, and is slated to take effect on August 1.

Yet less than one full week into the new fiscal season, the governor is hinting that even more taxes may be in the offing. Massachusetts currently imposes a flat tax rate of 5.3% on individuals, but Patrick indicated a desire to see this change in favor of a graduated scheme.

“We don’t have many really progressive mechanisms in Massachusetts, and we’re going to have to sort that out in the fullness of time, put it that way.”, Patrick said in a State House News service interview.

The governor has also been a consistent advocate of higher gasoline taxes, citing them as the preferred alternative to other revenue raising measures. He recently renewed his call for their increase by linking them to further reform of the state's transportation infrastructure.

"I think we still have got to turn to the question of a long-term financing solution for our transportation network,", Patrick said in remarks to The State House News Service. "We haven't done that yet. We haven't finished that work yet, and whether that's the gas tax or something else, we're going to have to face those issues, I hope sooner rather than later."

Budget leaders in both the House and the Senate have been noticeably cool to the notion of higher gas taxes. Senate president Therese Murray explicitly ruled them out, saying

"The Senate has already voted against that,’’

House Ways and Means chair Charles Murphy was equally emphatic, stating flatly:

"A gas tax is not going to pass in the near future, in the House or the Senate. We've been very clear on that front."

The governor's push for higher taxes comes amid the widespread expectation that he is running for re-election in 2010. Legislators in both the House and the Senate fear that he will run as a populist reformer fighting an upstream battle against a corrupt General Court. Massachusetts has been rocked by a series of ethical scandals, culminating in the recent federal indictment of House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi on corruption charges.

For more info: The State House News Service, Graduated Income Taxes