The concentration of businesses in the city of Brockton has risen steadily, but employment levels still haven’t returned to pre-Great Recession levels, according to Pioneer’s Brockton City Spotlight. City Spotlights is a new product developed by Pioneer Institute using 16 years of data from its MassEconomixTM and MassAnalysisTM databases.
After the authors of the proposed graduated tax in Massachusetts submitted their proposal for legislative approval in 2017, the federal government placed a $10,000 limitation of deductibility of state and local taxes on federal tax returns. This unforeseen change in the federal tax code had the effect of turning what would have been a 58 percent increase in average state income tax payments among Massachusetts millionaires, from $160,786 to $254,355, into what is essentially a 147 percent increase when the federal SALT limitation is included in the calculation. This substantial change should be taken into consideration by voters when they contemplate approving the surtax proposal.