Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center: Automatic Income Tax Rate Cuts – Frequently Asked Questions

A thriving state economy – one that delivers broadly shared prosperity to workers, families and businesses – depends on key public investments in schools and colleges, subways and highways, public safety and more. We pay for these essential investments with our tax dollars. A series of tax cuts dating from the late 1990s and early 2000s (enacted during the dot-com bubble) has reduced our ability to maintain these investments. The long term result of the tax cuts, predictably, has been recurring revenue shortfalls and repeated budget cuts. In particular, cuts made to the Personal Income Tax (PIT) between 1998 and 2002 are costing the Commonwealth some $3 billion annually today.

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