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PATRICK’S PLAN TO CLOSE TAX ‘LOOPHOLES’ GETS A LEGISLATIVE VETTING
Gov. Deval Patrick kicks off a Committee on Revenue hearing Wednesday morning, when he will defend his plan to close corporate tax “loopholes” and slash corporate excise taxes by 0.4 percent each of the next three years. The governor says closing the “loopholes” will reap $297 million for the commonwealth next fiscal year and as much as $447 million in the 2010 fiscal year before stabilizing at $280 million in additional annual revenue by fiscal 2011. The two main “loophole” closings, which are geared to hit larger corporations harder than smaller businesses, are a “check-the-box” proposal aimed at blocking companies from filing under different classifications on state and federal tax forms, and a “combined reporting” reform prohibiting firms from shifting taxable income to out-of-state subsidiaries. Patrick’s proposal is based partly on recommendations of a 15-member commission convened last April to study the tax code and recommend updates and changes. The commission voted in December 9-6 to support check-the-box and combined reporting reforms, as long as the changes came with a “meaningful” corporate excise tax cut. The definition of “meaningful” was left to the governor and the Legislature to hash out. House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi has offered his own plan, similar to the governor's except with much deeper cuts to the corporate excise rate; DiMasi wants to elide the rate to 7 percent by fiscal 2011, effectively rendering the overall package revenue neutral by that time. Joining the governor in support of his proposal will be Administration and Finance Secretary Leslie Kirwan and Department of Revenue Commissioner Navjeet Bal. Also expected to testify are several members of the tax code commission, including Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation President Michael Widmer, Associated Industries of Massachusetts Senior Vice President Eileen McAnneny, tax attorney Kevin Long and Hemenway & Barnes Managing Partner Stephen Kidder, a former DOR commissioner under Gov. Dukakis.
ADVOCATES BATTLE HEAT, CROWD TO TESTIFY BEFORE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
By Kyle Cheney
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE
STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, MARCH 4, 2008.....Lawmakers, state officials, crime victims, transgender people and advocates of all stripes crammed a stiflingly hot hearing room Tuesday as they lobbied the Judiciary Committee to support wide-ranging bills, including proposals to enhance protection for stalking victims, to further define biomedical research and to include transgender people in the state’s non-discrimination statutes.
Like many hearings of the Judiciary Committee, this one began in the early afternoon and in a frenzied atmosphere, with large crowds spilling into the hallways and court officers ushering journalists out of the aisles. Only when Senate Chair Robert Creedon Jr. had court officers open up a retractable wall were attendees able to squeeze into the uncomfortably sweltering room.
After finally getting underway, committee members heard the emotional appeals of a family whose daughter was killed by a habitual felon, the tearful testimony of a rape victim who was unable to get a restraining order against her assailant and the measured insistence of a top state law enforcement official about the need to protect witnesses and victims in courthouses.
Sheila Calkins, chief of staff to Attorney General Martha Coakley, told members that her experience as a prosecutor has taken her from courthouse to courthouse, many of which were equipped with safe, isolated waiting rooms for victims and witnesses – and many which were not.
“When there was a [separate] waiting area, victims were much more willing to come forth and testify,” Calkins said, urging the committee to report favorably on a bill (S 802) that would require such safe places in all of the commonwealth’s courthouses. The bill would also allow children or disabled people to bring an assistant into the courtroom with them.
Calkins said a separate, secure waiting room would also keep victims of crime out of the media glare.
“While the media plays a very important role today in the courtroom, it is still one of the most intimidating factors that is there for victims and witnesses,” she said. “A room where they can wait and feel safe, where they are not in the limelight, would be very helpful.”
Also speaking in support of the bill was Secretary of Public Safety Kevin Burke, district attorneys from across the commonwealth and Suffolk County Sheriff Andrea Cabral also lent their support.
Another bill before the committee would make discrimination against transgender people a hate crime. Cabral said that lack of specific protection for transgender people was “a significant gap” in the law and that it is “wrong to leave out an entire class of people.”
The bill (H 1722) received a major boost today, garnering the support of Gov. Deval Patrick and Attorney General Martha Coakley.
“Although the commonwealth of Massachusetts has a rich history of protecting the civil rights of all its citizens, transgendered people continue to face serious discrimination in the workplace, in schools and in public accommodations, which should not be tolerated in our Commonwealth,” Patrick wrote in a letter to the Judiciary Committee.
For her part, Coakley said transgender individuals “have been subjected to significant discrimination, and at times violence, due to misconceptions and prejudice regarding gender identity or expression,” and she urged lawmakers to join more than 80 counties and cities, employers, and about a dozen states that have added gender identity to anti-discrimination and hate crime laws.
Joining Cabral in support of the bill (H 1722) was Boston City Council President Maureen Feeney. Feeney, who oversaw the passage of a similar ordinance in Boston in 2002, told the committee that she had “never received a complaint or concern” about women being harassed in bathrooms or other gender-specific facilities as a result of the law, a common concern among the bill’s opponents.
Rep. Jeffrey Sanchez (D-Jamaica Plain) broke up the often emotional, personal appeals with a scientific one.
Speaking on behalf of a bill he filed (H 1713) Sanchez urged committee members to sanction the “non-invasive diagnostic research” of “neonates,” babies up to 30 days old, provided that the research does not “substantially jeopardize the life or health of the ... neonate.” The law currently only specifies the protection of fetuses but makes no references to newborn infants, which Sanchez said have different biological challenges and structures.
Other bills heard included a bill to enable stalking victims to more easily obtain restraining orders. Under current law, restraining orders are only granted to victims with a substantial dating relationship or a blood relationship to their stalker. The bill, S 1002, would eliminate what supporters said was a “loophole” that endangered vulnerable women.
Rep. Ellen Story (D-Amherst) spoke on behalf of a bill she said would strike antiquated language regarding abortion and contraception from the General Laws. Story said laws long struck down prohibiting married couples from using contraception and outlawing nearly all forms of abortion needed to be wiped off of the books. The bill has 39 co-sponsors.
Story spoke on behalf of another bill that would enable pregnant women under 18 years of age to get an abortion, notwithstanding parental permission, provided they receive counseling on alternatives to abortion and the permission of a school psychologist, a social worker, a clergyman, a teacher, a nurse practitioner or other counselor.
Rep. Bradford Hill (R-Ipswich) urged committee members to pass what he called the “three-strikes-and-you’re-out bill” to jail for life without parole repeat offenders who commit three or more felonies. Hill spoke alongside the family of a girl who was killed by a felon who had been convicted more than 20 times.
“This bill will send a strong message,” Hill said.
To make a case for his bill, Hill invoked the case of Daniel Tavares, a convicted murderer released by a Massachusetts judge last year. Tavares fled Massachusetts and went on to commit a double murder in Washington State before being apprehended and brought back to Massachusetts.
Rep. Paul Frost (R-Auburn) advocated on behalf of a bill that would allow women to breastfeed in public.
“We all know the health benefits of breastfeeding infants,” Frost said. “We understand that many health professionals have touted this practice and encouraged mothers to do it. It’s not a very simple process to always do. It’s not always convenient for a mother to live her normal life and to still provide this healthy, beneficial way of feeding her child.”
The bill would enable police to impose a $300 fine on anyone who prevents a mother from publicly breastfeeding.
The Senate has already approved a bill this session to protect a woman’s right to breastfeed in public.
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