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News & Updates from the Government Affairs Team
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You are receiving the Legislative Brief newsletter as a benefit of your MassCPAs membership. Renew today to continue receiving this and all your member perks!
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MassCPAs President and CEO Amy Pitter Joins Governor Baker to Endorse $700 Million Tax Relief Package
| On Tuesday, MassCPAs President and CEO Amy Pitter joined Governor Charlie Baker, Administration officials and business community leaders to endorse the Governor’s $700 million tax relief package offered with his FY23 budget proposal.
“On behalf of 11,000 CPAs and accounting professionals across Massachusetts, I want to commend Governor Baker and the Administration for filing this comprehensive and timely tax relief package,” Pitter stated in a press release. “We’re specifically grateful for the inclusion of a provision to update the conformity date for individual income tax purposes from 2005 to 2022. Massachusetts conforms to the 2005 Internal Revenue Code (IRC), but most states conform to 2021 IRC, which makes us more outdated than any other state by a landslide. There is no economic or tax policy reason for Massachusetts not to update its conformity date. This low cost and necessary update will provide consistency and simplicity for Massachusetts taxpayers and streamline tax administration at the Department of Revenue (DOR), and we look forward to working with the Governor, his team and the legislature on this critical change, which we’re thankful was also included in House Ways and Means budget proposal.”
To read the full press release, click here.
We look forward to working with Administration officials and the Legislature to see this relief package passed into law.
| Massachusetts House of Representatives to Debate $49.6 Billion FY23 Budget Next Week
| Last week, the Massachusetts House of Representatives released its $49.6 billion FY23 budget, which calls for major investments in workforce development, education and more. Included in the House budget is an important update to the Massachusetts personal income tax rules from the 2005 version of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) to the 2022 IRC – a longtime legislative priority for MassCPAs.
Along with the House proposal to update the income tax conformity rules, it also calls to decouple Massachusetts income tax rules from the federal qualified business income deduction, as was proposed in the Governor’s budget proposal. To read the proposed change, read Section 24 and Section 25 here.
We are grateful to House Speaker Mariano, Chair Michlewitz and those involved in crafting the budget for including the update to the state's income tax conformity date. We look forward to continuing our work with the House, Senate and their staff throughout the budget deliberations to ensure this important update is passed into law. To read the House budget proposal, click here.
The House will debate the budget throughout the week of April 25, after which it will go to the Senate. We will keep you posted on all developments as we learn more.
Do you want to assist with our advocacy efforts? Sign up to be a CPA Advocate today!
| IRS Seeks More Funding as Tax Season Ends
| In a Tax Day message, IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig thanked the American taxpayers for filing their taxes, touted the agency’s success throughout the tax season and acknowledged “a season of frustration for many people” including those waiting for returns to be processed and/or refunds to be distributed, those having trouble reaching the IRS and experiencing other delays or issues.
The Commissioner noted the Agency’s significant understaffing due to decades-worth of budget cuts as causes for the hit to services provided to the American public. With $14.1 billion allocated in President Biden’s budget proposal to modernize IRS systems and improve the taxpayer services, the Commissioner also mentioned the agency requires multi-year funding for it to rebuild and to “truly be able to deliver for the American people with long-term improvements.”
Michael Cohn at Accounting Today has more on the Commissioner’s message here.
| Federal and State Tax News
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REMINDER: Important security update for your MassCPAs.org password
| The new MassCPAs.org launched on March 8, 2022, and as part of our enhanced security, you will need to update your password the first time you log into the new site – this is a one-time change to help protect your information. Visit MassCPAs.org/login, click “Forgot Password” and a link will be emailed to you to reset your password.
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