Massachusetts to Keep State Income Tax

Jim Burns

Senior Staff Writer

(CNSNews.com) - Massachusetts voters Tuesday defeated by a 59 to 41 percent vote a referendum to abolish the bay state's personal income tax. Many pollsters predicted that the initiative would fail.

The measure was opposed by many Bay State Democrats and Republicans as well as Republican gubernatorial candidate Mitt Romney and Democrat Shannon O'Brien.

The effort to scrap the state income tax had been the campaign centerpiece of Massachusetts Libertarian Party gubernatorial candidate Carla Howell. She called the referendum the "Small Government Act."

"We don't need an income tax and we need much lower property taxes," she said during a recent gubernatorial debate.

But Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a business lobby said the referendum had it been approved would have destroyed the workings of state government.

"This is far and away the most sweeping and potentially disruptive ballot initiative every to come before Massachusetts voters," he said.

During the campaign, the Massachusetts Libertarian Party vowed that if the referendum were defeated Tuesday they were ready to mount another campaign to gather 120,000 signatures to get it on the ballot in the future.

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