WBZ NewsRadio 1030 on some of the reaction to the Healey Administration’s tax relief package as it relates to the proposal to increase the Massachusetts estate tax filing threshold:
Healey is deploying her political capital to press for a nearly $1 billion per year tax package that would roll out a new $600-per-dependent tax credit for parents and caregivers, boost breaks for renters and seniors, slash the short-term capital gains tax rate from 12 percent to 5 percent, and triple the estate tax threshold to $3 million.
Since she rolled out her plan two weeks ago, the Raise Up Coalition has been critical of Healey’s capital gains and estate tax proposals, arguing that they would “undermine” the goals of the new surtax.
Gruman said the allied labor and community groups believe Healey’s estate tax plan will “pass the benefits up to the ultra-rich.”
Healey has contended that tripling the estate tax threshold — a bigger reform than her Republican predecessor, Gov. Charlie Baker, sought — would affect not just higher earners but also many middle-income families who “have seen an appreciation of their property value.”
The coalition threw its support behind a Sen. Julian Cyr bill (S 1784) that calls for preventing any estate tax from reducing a decedent’s net estate “to an amount less than two million dollars.”
Gruman said that measure “would protect modest estates of $2 million and under.”
“It saves most of the money, but it gets the relief right where we want it,” he said.
This post is a part of Old Colony Law’s Estate Tax Updates.