MASSACHUSETTS DRIVE TO END STATE INCOME TAX COULD SPREAD ACROSS NATION

CHICAGO—The taxpayer initiative to end the state income tax on the statewide Massachusetts ballot, if successful, could spread across the nation, according to Jim Tobin, President of National Taxpayers United of Illinois (NTUI). The Massachusetts state board of elections recently certified that citizen activists have gathered 83,000 certified signatures to qualify an initiative for the November ballot to eliminate the state income tax.
According to the Wall Street Journal, “The tax repeal would give every Massachusetts worker a 5.3% after-tax pay raise, or about $3,700 extra income per worker…The Small Government Act would repeal the 5.3% income and wage tax, as well as the state capital gains tax, which reaches as high as 12%. The ballot initiative would replace the $12.5 billion in taxes with . . . nothing.”
“This is the biggest, most important taxpayer revolt since California’s Proposition 13 was passed 30 years ago,” said Tobin. “Yet most of the national media have missed it because they are too busy covering and fawning over Barack Obama. Fortunately the Wall Street Journal has given it excellent coverage, again proving it is the nation’s best newspaper.”
“One can smell the fear oozing out of the pores of Massachusetts politicians,” said Tobin. “Massachusetts State Secretary William Galvin assigned the ‘END the Income Tax ballot initiative’ the first spot on the November 4, 2008 Massachusetts statewide ballot. It’s called Question 1.”
Carla Howell, of the Committee For Small Government that is driving the referendum, explained that the referendum will “force the state legislators to start cutting the bloated state budget.”
According to the Journal, “The same initiative was on the ballot in 2002, and though the political establishment roared with laughter through Election Day, the measure got 45% of the vote. This time pro-tax forces such as the Massachusetts Teachers Association are planning to spend millions of dollars warning of Armageddon.”
“Nine U.S. states have no income tax, including such economic climbers as Florida, Nevada, Tennessee and Texas,” said the Journal. “These states are doing fine funding schools, hospitals and police without the income levy. Over the past decade 330,000 Massachusetts residents have packed U-Haul trailers and left—more than have even fled Michigan—and many have gone to no-income-tax New Hampshire.”
Howell may be contacted by the media at http://www.smallgovernmentact.org/
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