JALSA in State House News Service on Corporate Tax Dodging

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Excerpt from Raise Up Targets Corporate Taxes, Rainy Day Fund

An influential coalition that shepherded passage of the income surtax on wealthier Massachusetts residents is preparing to launch a lobbying push this session for a "corporate fair share" policy targeting global businesses that advocates say evade millions of dollars in state taxes.

Raise Up Massachusetts is working to build momentum for legislation addressing "offshore tax havens," which coalition members say are used by global corporations like Apple, Amazon, McDonald's and Walmart to steer profits overseas and dodge taxes.

More heavily taxing those corporations could yield hundreds of millions of dollars in new funding for Massachusetts, according to a Raise Up official, who said more concrete estimates will be available this spring. The proposal already faces pushback from a prominent business group that says Massachusetts needs more clarity from the federal government before adjusting the state's tax code.

Advocates say they also want the Legislature to tap the state's rainy day fund to stave off Gov. Maura Healey's proposed health care budget cuts and alleviate looming federal funding shortfalls, including for Medicaid. The Raise Up spokesperson suggested around $1 billion should be pulled from the nearly $9 billion reserve account, which lawmakers are hesitant to use over concerns of jeopardizing the state's bond rating.

"I think anyone looking at this logically will be able to see that the need is going to be so dire," said Cindy Rowe, CEO of the Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action, a founding member of Raise Up. "I think voters will be contacting their elected officials and saying, if you have a choice between using the money that has been built up in the rainy day fund to the highest amount of all time -- record levels of money in the rainy day fund -- and you have a choice on whether to impose a tax on multi-billion-dollar corporations, who are already being taxed on that money in other states, there is no choice."