The action of the High Tech Council is unconstitutional.

State House News Service

Influencer business He warned Monday that the bill the House passed last month contained an “unconstitutional provision” to replace the nearly $3 billion taxpayer rebate program last year.

The Massachusetts High Technology Council, which has taken legal action on a number of other tax policy issues, told legislative leaders and Gov. Maura Haley to argue that reducing tax revenue to equal amounts “violates the state constitution by effectively taxing income at different rates for different taxpayers.”

Under the successful 1986 ballot initiative of the High Tech Council, Citizens for Limited Taxation, any eligible taxpayer must receive relief equal to the amount paid. This means that higher earners who face a bigger tax bill will receive bigger discounts and vice versa.

House Democrats last month proposed a $1.1 billion tax relief package that, among other changes the High Tech Council praised, would instead mandate future 62F relief for all taxpayers, regardless of their contributions.

The High Tech Council asked Goodwin Procter LLP attorney Kevin Martin to review the “constitutional issues,” and Martin concluded that the measure could comply with the Constitution’s flat income tax rate requirement.

“For example, a taxpayer who paid $500 in taxes would receive the same credit as a taxpayer who paid $5,000 in taxes,” House Vice President Elizabeth Mahoney said in a letter to legislative leaders. “This amendment (which was not subject to a public hearing) would not only change the law passed by voters, it would effectively tax the income of different taxpayers and violate the Constitution,” she wrote.

In the year It was one of the groups that successfully opposed the proposed income tax in 2018, which was implemented this year following a revamped campaign. Last year, when the flood of tax collections 62F was triggered for the first time in more than three decades, the High Tech Council and its partners vowed to ask the courts to intervene if they want to challenge the requirements of 62F.

Asked if the council was ready to take legal action on the new law, Mahoney replied: “Our hope is that, taking this information into consideration, the proposed changes to Chapter 62F will become law.” We hope that the legislature and the governor do not want to enact laws that are against the constitution of the state.

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