I made that casual assertion yesterday, but I was wrong. This report from the indispensable Tax Foundation suggests that Massachusetts has, as of 2008, a relatively modest state and local tax burden, placing it 23rd in the nation. This reflects activist efforts to restrain growth in taxes, including a near-miss effort to repeal the state income tax in 2002. Given the fact that state spending is growing at a fast clip, it’s not clear that state taxes will stay fairly modest, but we’ll see.
I still think that eliminating the state and local tax deduction would meet more resistance in Massachusetts than, say, Arizona, but it would encounter far more resistance in heavily taxed New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Maryland, the numbers 1-4 most heavily taxed states respectively, leaving aside federal collections.
P.S. It’s also worth noting that Massachusetts is, like Connecticut, a relatively affluent state, and so federal tax collections are very high. As a result, Massachusetts has the seventh-latest “Tax Freedom Day,” the Tax Foundation’s measure of the number of days it takes to pay off your combined state, local, and federal taxes.
I’ve heard from readers on both sides: some suggest that I factor in environmental and zoning regulations that raise the cost of construction and thus the cost of housing in Massachusetts, counting this as a kind of tax. This strikes me as a coherent view. It does, however, change the terrain of the debate, as one could also factor in the cash value of public safety and an environment relatively free of mercury and particulate matter. Assigning a cash value to these properties is far from impossible, but it will of course be contested.