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It seems evident that Governor Maura Healey recognizes Massachusetts is at an inflection point and must act to prevent a mass exodus of residents from leaving the Commonwealth and heading to lower-cost states. This is undoubtedly why her first major legislative package was a tax reform bill designed to help make living and working in Massachusetts more affordable. But once state legislators are done putting their stamp on tax relief, will it be enough to stop the hemorrhaging and keep residents and businesses, along with their tax dollars, in the Bay State?
From a small business perspective, there is not enough meaningful relief in the Legislature’s version of the tax package to effectively move the needle on competitiveness.
Gov. Healey proposed raising the exemption for the onerous estate tax to $3 million, but the House and Senate lowered it to $2 million. Therefore, instead of being worst among the handful of states that still levy an estate tax, Massachusetts will be third worst – take that Oregon and Rhode Island! Making matters worse, the Senate opted to include in the long-awaited tax reform bill a tax increase for married couples subjected to the newly imposed 4% income tax surcharge. When it comes to over-taxation, these are hardly great strides towards improving small business competitiveness.
Indeed, Massachusetts’ Main Street businesses face an ever-increasing number of challenges following the pandemic. Anecdotally, we’ve all spent more time in store checkout lines or sat longer at a restaurant waiting for our food because businesses are short-staffed. In fact, the May 2023 National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Optimism Index shows 44% of small business owners reporting positions they cannot fill. Even when employers attempt to hire for a job opening, 89% find no, or too few qualified applicants. Now, factor in prolonged inflation and supply chain disruptions, and the last thing small businesses need are additional hurdles caused by the policies emanating from Beacon Hill.
The cost of doing business here is already too high compared to other states. Massachusetts was ranked worst in the nation for unemployment insurance taxes, something all employers pay. This problem only became more pronounced when other states used billions of dollars in federal aid to cover the cost of layoffs resulting from state mandated shutdowns and Massachusetts only allocated a fraction of what was required. Now, employers are charged with repaying $2.7 billion in COVID assessments on top of their UI taxes. Even scarier is the prospect that business owners may be on the hook to refund another $2.5 billion in UI funds to the federal government due to a billing error the state made during the pandemic.
Further, the cost of hiring and retaining employees is also elevated compared to other states. Massachusetts has one of the highest state minimum wages in the nation at $15 per hour. Legislation was filed this year to elevate that base wage by 33% to a whopping $20 per hour. And when energy bills skyrocketed for Massachusetts residents this past winter, they shot up for small businesses as well. Businesses require affordable energy to run machinery and heat or cool facilities in order to compete with parts of the nation that enjoy far lower energy expenses. Offering affordable health insurance coverage is also a longtime challenge for small businesses who experience some of the highest expenses in the nation. Smaller employers and their workers continue to be at a disadvantage with limited options, annual premium hikes, and higher deductibles.
So, with all of these challenges and disadvantages, what are the solutions being presented by lawmakers to actually make the state more competitive, strengthen the economy, and encourage job creation? Sadly, few. What we instead witness are energy policies that result in higher utility bills, healthcare proposals that never address rising premiums for small businesses, tax relief that falls short of substantive reforms, and labor mandates that make it more expensive to run a small business. And in the end, those costs are all passed along to Massachusetts consumers, making the state all the more unaffordable. If legislators are honestly serious about making Massachusetts a real contender against lower cost states, it’s time to consider broad-based tax relief, eliminate impediments to operating a business, and tackle energy and healthcare affordability.
Christopher Carlozzi is state director of the National Federation of Independent Business
Local News
New Hampshire is leading an effort from 25 states to challenge a Massachusetts gun law, and this month, they’re taking it to the Supreme Court.
The centerpiece of the argument is the Pheasant Lane Mall in Nashua, N.H., which reaches across state lines into Tyngsborough. If shoppers park on the south side of the mall’s parking lot, they might end up crossing state lines during a visit.
The attorneys general of New Hampshire and 24 other Republican-led states say this poses a potential problem for firearm holders. A New Hampshire resident who is legally carrying a firearm on their home state’s side of the parking lot may inadvertently be breaking the law when they cross the lot into Massachusetts, where it is illegal to carry without a permit.
Joining New Hampshire are the attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming, who are calling the arrangement unconstitutional. The states have rallied behind Phillip Marquis of Rochester, N.H., to ask the Supreme Court to protect out-of-state residents from Massachusetts’ firearms regulations.
“The geography of the mall is such that a New Hampshire resident might find themselves in Massachusetts if she parks on the south side of the parking lot or visits Buffalo Wild Wings,” reads a brief from the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office to the Supreme Court. “If that person is carrying a firearm without a Massachusetts license — which would be constitutionally protected activity in most of the mall—that person risks being charged as a felon and facing mandatory incarceration in Massachusetts.”
The trouble began for Marquis in 2022 when he was in a car accident in Massachusetts, according to the brief. When police arrived, he informed them that he had a pistol on him and was subsequently charged with carrying a firearm without a license.
Marquis previously sued the Commonwealth for the burdens that Massachusetts’ firearms permit law creates on out-of-state visitors, but the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court denied his claims. They ruled in March that the state’s nonresident firearms licensing laws were constitutional, according to court documents.
Claiming that the Massachusetts court denied him his Second and Fourteenth Amendment rights, Marquis has petitioned the Supreme Court to federally overrule that court’s decision. In his petition, Marquis invoked New York State Rifle & Police Association, Inc. v. Bruen, where the court established that state firearms restrictions must be covered by the Second Amendment or adhere to historical firearms regulations.
Using Bruen, Marquis and the Republican attorneys general supporting him are aiming to prove that there is no justification for applying Massachusetts’ firearms restrictions to out-of-state residents and that to do so would be unconstitutional. However, the state’s Supreme Judicial Court found the law constitutional even under Bruen because it intends to prevent dangerous people from obtaining firearms, just as historical regulations have done.
“To the extent that the Commonwealth restricts the ability of law-abiding citizens to carry firearms within its borders, the justification for so doing is credible, individualized evidence that the person in question would pose a danger if armed,” the Supreme Judicial Court’s decision read. “Both case law and the historical record unequivocally indicate that this justification is consistent with ‘the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.’”
It’s not immediately clear if the Supreme Court will respond to Marquis’ appeal or when it will make any kind of decision, but lower courts are at something of a crossroads with how and when to apply Bruen to gun possession cases. As such, they are looking to the Supreme Court for a more definitive answer.
Since the proof of historical context that Bruen requires has led to some uncertainty, any ruling that these lower courts make is likely to amount to a partisan decision. However, if the Supreme Court provides more substantive clarity in a response to Marquis, these lower courts just might find the answer they are seeking.
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Massachusetts State Lottery players won two $100,000 prizes Friday from the day’s “Mass Cash” drawings.
The winning tickets were sold at the Roslindale Food Mart on Washington Street and McSheffrey’s of the South End convenience store (with Mobil gas) on Main Street in Woburn.
Mass Cash drawings happen twice daily, at 2 p.m. and at 9 p.m. It costs just $1 to play.
Overall, at least 625 prizes worth $600 or more were won or claimed in Massachusetts on Monday, including 6 in Springfield, 22 in Worcester and 14 in Boston.
The Massachusetts State Lottery releases a full list of winning tickets every day. The list only includes winning tickets worth more than $600.
The two largest lottery prizes won so far in 2025 were each worth $15 million. One of the prizes was from a winning “Diamond Deluxe” scratch ticket sold in Holyoke, and the other was from a “300X” scratch ticket sold on Cape Cod.
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