Taxation-State and Local Commons^™

Report Relative To The Land Use, Permitting, And Health (“Second Floor”) Operations Of The Town Of Hanson, Massachusetts, Edward J. Collins, Jr. Center For Public Management, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Edward J. Collins Center for Public Management Publications

The Town of Hanson retained UMass Boston’s Edward J. Collins, Jr. Center for Public Management to perform an assessment of ways to increase efficiency and effectiveness within the Town government. This report addresses the “second floor” departments, which include: Building Inspections (along with wiring, plumbing, etc.), Conservation, Health, Planning, and Zoning.

While the first floor departments are doing the work to keep Hanson functioning today, the second floor departments are doing the work to keep Hanson strong tomorrow, protecting the resources of the Town for the future. “Resources” should be taken in the broadest sense of the term, which would …

Report Relative To The Finance And Administration (“First Floor”) Operations Of The Town Of Hanson, Massachusetts, Edward J. Collins, Jr. Center For Public Management, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Edward J. Collins Center for Public Management Publications

As with almost all Massachusetts municipalities, the Town of Hanson has faced several fiscally challenging years and is likely to continue facing fiscal challenges for the foreseeable future. This has led to a situation of interconnected operational, budget, personnel, and morale challenges. Despite these, there is definitely a sense that the Town is, at least in some areas, starting to move in the right direction. The Town retained the Collins Center to perform an analysis of operations that includes recommendations for ways to increase efficiency and effectiveness, as well as additional recommendations that may improve Town operations or service delivery. …

Massachusetts Zappers - Collecting The Sales Tax That Has Already Been Paid, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

No other New England state is as vulnerable to Zappers as is the State of Massachusetts. Zappers and related software programming, Phantom-ware, facilitate an old tax fraud – skimming cash receipts. In this instance skimming is performed with modern electronic cash registers (ECRs).

Zappers are a global revenue problem, but to the best of this author’s knowledge they have not been uncovered in Massachusetts. A global perspective says: it is highly unlikely that Zappers are not in the Commonwealth – we just need to find them. In fact, using a Quebec template, tax losses from Zappers and related frauds in …

Fiscal Smell Tests: A Mid-Term Reality Check Of Massachusetts Finances, Joseph S. Slavet, Joseph R. Barresi

McCormack Graduate School General Publications (active until 2013)

In his latest budget message the Governor points to achievement of a "real, but fragile fiscal balance. " On the credit side of the ledger, he cites four balanced budgets, reduced reliance on one-time revenues, no new taxes, five tax cuts, no deficit borrowing, and a triple upgrade in bond rating. On the debit side are continued spending pressures, slow tax revenue growth and burdensome levels of debt.

But is the fiscal condition of the Commonwealth stable, albeit fragile? Or would a careful reading of the numbers transmit another message?

The purpose of this report is to measure the Commonwealth's …

Tax To Grind: Unequal Personal Income Taxation Of Massachusetts Single-Parent Families And Options For Reform, Randy Albelda

New England Journal of Public Policy

While Massachusetts households headed by single parents have, on average, less income than other types of families, they are subject to the same effective income tax rate as the population as a whole. Consequently, such head-of-household families are victims of inequitable tax treatment in two ways. First, their current personal exemptions result in a higher tax burden on these families than on families of the same size and income who file joint income tax returns. Second, head-of-household families, defined as single filers, must apply a lower no-tax threshold than joint filers, even though the former are also composed of two …

After The Revolt: A Framework For Fiscal Recovery, Joseph S. Slavet, Raymond G. Torto

McCormack Graduate School General Publications (active until 2013)

Despite the injection of new taxes in the amount of $1 .2 billion in fiscal 1991, and recently announced cuts in the budget of approximately $464 million, the Commonwealth's fiscal condition - irrespective of the outcome of CLT's petition -is precarious. Although the political juices are flowing in Massachusetts, with an eye on November 6th, Massachusetts decision-makers have not faced up to the problems inherent in the long-term, structural spending patterns of the state's budget.

Our five-year budget projection indicates that if expenditure trends continue without dramatic restructuring - particularly in the "non-discretionary" accounts - the Commonwealth faces a steady …

After The Miracle: A History And Analysis Of The Massachusetts Fiscal Crisis: Being A Drama In Five Acts, With An Implied Invitation To The Reader To Participate In The Crafting Of The Final Act, Joseph S. Slavet, Raymond G. Torto, Edmund Beard, Louis C. Dinatale

McCormack Graduate School General Publications (active until 2013)

"After the Miracle" documents the factors that have shaped the recent political debate in Massachusetts and are likely to determine continuing economic and fiscal conditions in Massachusetts in the near future. The paper indicates that 1990 may begin a decade of real limits for Massachusetts. The economy has stagnated and the next two years will be a period of deep economic uncertainty. It is also clear that a resurgence, like that of the boom period of the eighties, is unlikely to be replicated.

The 1980's was a period when state-local spending in Massachusetts, propelled by the infusion of double-digit tax …

Determining Tax Contributions And Service Benefits For Greater Roxbury, Bette Woody

William Monroe Trotter Institute Publications

A study of tax contributions and services benefits received by the greater Roxbury community involves several questions. Important is determining the types of revenue to be included as a basis for assessing contributions. A second key issue is determining how to extract district services from aggregate expenditure budgets. This is necessary in order to make spending estimates consistent with geographic boundaries and revenue categories.

Developing an approximate picture of services which include qualitative measures of the service delivered is not a trivial question. Engineering analysis takes the perspective that dollar values alone are a poor measure of the level of …

Residential Tax Exemption Policies: Trends, Impacts And Future Options For Boston, Joseph S. Slavet, Raymond G. Torto

McCormack Graduate School General Publications (active until 2013)

This is an extensive report on residential tax exemption issues in the City of Boston with an evaluation of recently proposed revisions in current policies.

Managing Change: Reflections On Innovation In The Public Sector, Ira A. Jackson, Jane P. O'Hern

New England Journal of Public Policy

In January 1983, when Governor Michael S. Dukakis appointed Ira Jackson as commissioner of revenue, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was facing an estimated $300 million deficit. The state was also suffering from a severe loss of public confidence in the integrity of its tax administration. His first and most urgent priority being the restoration of that confidence, Commissioner Jackson implemented a three-part strategy to improve voluntary compliance with the tax laws: raising the stakes for evaders, treating honest taxpayers as customers rather than victims, and changing public attitudes about tax evasion. Productivity gains and innovative procedures at the Department of …

Urban Distress, Educational Equity, And Local Governance: State Level Policy Implication Of Proposition 2 1/2 In Massachusetts, Edward P. Morgan

McCormack Graduate School General Publications (active until 2013)

This report examines the impact of Proposition 2-1/2 on different types of communities and the implications of this impact for state aid and state-level policies. The effects of 2-1/2, especially first-year effects in public education, are evaluated from the perspective of four general policy objectives or values: equity, efficiency, accountability, and local autonomy. The primary concern of this report is for various considerations of equity and inequality.

Future Issues Facing Boston: The Assessing Department, Janet L. Hunkel

McCormack Graduate School General Publications (active until 2013)

Taxpayers' opinions of municipal government often focus on the property tax. Taxpayers are stingy, and they are critical as to whether their money is purchasing competent services. For citizens to have faith that government is democratic, taxes must be equitable — everyone must pay their fair share. For government to function efficiently, tax administration must be efficient in order to support city services.

The property tax is a complex, difficult tax to administer; it is vulnerable to misuse. However, there have been recent, dramatic changes to the tax laws. Municipal government in Massachusetts now has the political and legal wherewithall …

Boston's Fiscal Future: Prognosis And Policy Options For 1984 To 1986, Joseph S. Slavet, Raymond G. Torto

McCormack Graduate School General Publications (active until 2013)

The finances of the City of Boston have been variously affected throughout its long history by regional and national economic cycles, by legal constraints and changes in the state-local tax system and by inter-municipal resource and expenditure disparities.

In more recent years, however, a series of tremors converged to propel Boston's seemingly chronic fiscal problem to the crisis stage. As inflation climbed to unprecedented double-digit levels, an overwhelming majority of the state's populace supported specific limits on property taxes, the primary source of municipal revenue. As a result, Boston was forced to reduce property tax levies by $144 million during …

The Massachusetts Fiscal System: Structure And Performance, Padraig O'Malley, Raymond G. Torto

Center for Studies in Policy and the Public Interest Publications

On November 4, 1980 the citizens of Massachusetts, by a vote of 59% to 41%, resoundingly endorsed a tax reduction plan known as Proposition 2 1/2. All communities in the Commonwealth were faced with an immediate reduction in their local revenues due to the immediate cut in the excise tax that Proposition 2 1/2 called for, and up to 130 communities will have to implement a 15% reduction in their tax levies for FY 1982.

Already there are protestations from many local officials that they cannot make the required tax cuts without severely reducing the level of local services. The …

Constitutional Law-Commerce Clause-State Taxation Of Commerce, Allan Neef S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff, a Massachusetts manufacturing corporation operating on a mail order-f.o.b. delivery basis, maintained a branch office and warehouse in Chicago. While some over-the-counter sales were consummated in Chicago, this office acted mainly as a headquarters for an engineering staff maintained as a service to customers, and as a conduit for orders placed by Illinois customers with the company. Orders received at the branch office were forwarded to Massachusetts for acceptance or rejection, and some filled orders were shipped to customers by way of the local outlet as a means of reducing freight costs. Although the Chicago office did not solicit …

Trusts - Apportionment Of Annual Taxes Between Life Tenant And Remainderman, Charles F. Dugan

Michigan Law Review

Annual taxes on real estate in Massachusetts were assessed on January 1 of each year, and were payable on July and October l, The will set up a trust to pay income to the tenant for life, and to pay the principal to the remainderman. The trustees sought to retain sufficient funds out of income to meet the next year's taxes, fearing that the tenant might not live long enough after January 1 to accumulate sufficient income to meet the taxes, and they brought this bill for instructions. The probate court entered a decree sustaining the trustees' contentions. On appeal, …

Taxation-Jurisdiction To Levy An Inheritance Tax

Michigan Law Review

A Massachusetts decedent by will created a trust in stocks and bonds. By the terms of the trust the trustee was to pay the income to the settlor's daughter during her life and upon her death was to pay the corpus to such persons as she should by will appoint. She died domiciled in North Carolina leaving a will appointing her husband and son to receive the property. North Carolina imposed an inheritance tax under a statute making the exercise of the power of appointment subject to the tax in the same manner as though the property belonged absolutely to …

Inheritance Taxatlon

Michigan Law Review

The recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Frick v. Pennsylvania, (June 1925) Adv. Ops. 122, 123, 124, 125, is of vital importance in the field of inheritance taxation. The facts as far as material to the present discussion are these: one Henry C. Frick, domiciled in Pennsylvania, died testate in 1919 leaving a large estate, consisting, among other things, of certain tangible personalty permanently located in New York and other tangible personalty located in Massachusetts and stock in various corporations chartered by states other than Pennsylvania. This property was all included in the clear …

The Equitable Conversion Fiction As A Basis For Inheritance Taxation

Michigan Law Review

No one would dispute the jurisdiction of the state where land is situated to impose an inheritance tax upon its transfer at the death of the owner. Callahan v. Woodbridge, 171 Mass. 595, 51 N. E. 176; Matter of Majot, 199 N. Y. 29, 92 N. E. 402, Chamberlain's Estate, 257 Pa. 113,101 Atl. 314. Equally clear is the converse proposition: that no other state except the state where the land lies can impose such a tax. Succession of Westfeldt, 122 La. 836, 48 So. 281; In re Rust's Estate, 213 Mich. 138, 182 N. W. …