August 7, 2018 By Jon Hurst, President

The so-called “Grand Bargain” was signed into law in late June, and with its’ passage, three initiatives were kept off the November ballot.  One question was RAM’s rollback of the sales tax; and the other two were the $15 minimum wage and the paid family and medical leave payroll mandates. 

Make no mistake about it—without the existence of RAM’s sales tax initiative, the political pressure to remove these two costly labor mandates from the ballot would never have occurred.  The sales tax ballot initiative created the environment and the leverage to move closer to middle ground through compromise, rather than facing near certain voter passage of the labor initiatives.  Neither the Legislature nor the advocates pressing the labor mandates wanted to see a sales tax rollback with a $1 Billion price tag. 

June 22, 2018 BY JON HURST

This week, after 20 years of RAM work on sales tax fairness, the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of the future of our Main Streets by overturning the 1992 Quill decision on remote seller tax collection and remittance.  The South Dakota v Wayfair decision is important and welcomed as it will seek to end unequal application of state government imposed sales taxes.  Here in Massachusetts, we have always had the “New Hampshire problem,” but we also have a very tech savvy consumer, all too likely to send their vital discretionary dollars out of our local economy, to tax free sellers easily found right on their smart phones.  Thus for many years, local stores have had two strikes against them as tax free competitors have proliferated. 

October 24, 2107  By Jon Hurst, President

The Retailers Association of Massachusetts has been investing considerable time and resources this fall to qualify a ballot initiative to reduce the sales tax rate back to the 2009 level of 5.0%, as well as to authorize an annual August two day sales tax holiday.  Our membership polling clearly showed overwhelming support for the Association to take this rare step.  As an industry, we have not used the ballot initiative mechanism since 1994, when the voters approved a RAM sponsored measure to make Massachusetts the last state in the nation to allow stores to open on Sunday mornings, and on the three summer national holidays. 

Moving Ahead on Sales Tax Ballot Question

RAM’s membership overwhelmingly decided this week to move forward with an effort to put a sales tax ballot question before the voters that would reduce the state sales tax to 5% and mandate an annual sales tax holiday.

AUG. 18, 2015 • BY RYAN KEARNEY