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Closing Tax Loopholes Will Level The Playing Field
My father is a WWII veteran who came back to the States after four years of active duty and started a small business. He and a partner ran that firm for decades until he retired, well into his seventies.
One of the biggest treats I can remember from my childhood is spending the day at the office with dad—sharpening pencils, pounding on the typewriter, fooling around with the adding machine. That business put the food on our table, sent us to college, and otherwise provided our family with necessities as well as comforts.
I tell you all this by way of introducing a major MASSPIRG campaign, one to level the playing field for businesses in Massachusetts by closing tax loopholes.
I don’t have an anti-business bone in my body. But I was brought up to believe that everyone pays his or her way, there are no free rides, and, quite simply, fair is fair.
Our Campaign To Close The Loopholes is all about fairness.
I have gotten feedback from a few of our members out there, saying that our new effort to pass loophole-closing legislation, that would result in some big businesses paying more in taxes, is anti-business and would be bad for our economy.
But I think most people see this issue as I do: big, multi-state companies who do business in Massachusetts should not be able to squeeze through loopholes—gaps in the law that were either created decades ago and are now obsolete, or gaps that should never have existed, or gaps that have been closed in other states but not ours—and it’s high time we closed them.
So one of our top legislative priorities for the 2007-2008 session is to highlight the problem of tax loopholes—and conduct a public education campaign that describes the unfair advantages large, multistate businesses are taking, and how that hurts the rest of the business community as they are forced to compete on an uneven playing field.
Loopholes hurt citizens and small businesses too, as we all bear more of the tax burden to support necessary state programs and infrastructure like roads, schools and public safety.
And we have good company as we push for solutions in the State House, with organizations including Massachusetts Teachers Association, cities and towns, Stand For Children, Neighbor to Neighbor, and business leaders like former CEO of Stride Rite Arnold Hiatt—all of us looking for progress soon.
Speaking of the need for fairness, just a couple of days before I wrote this letter, our ID theft bill finally saw some action.
One version passed the House, and a different version passed the Senate. Next stop is a conference committee where the work will be to reconcile the two.
The good news: The bill is moving. The challenge: Differences get reconciled behind closed doors in conference, so we’ll continue to need your help to ensure that the best bill makes it through this process.
As our new tagline says, we are “standing up to powerful interests” everywhere we see injustice and unfairness. And then we craft solutions and run the campaigns to solve the problems—none of which we could accomplish without your support.
As always, our thanks,
Janet S. Domenitz
Executive Director
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