Massachusetts business groups have so far spent $1.6M in bid to lower the state income tax

The coalition of business groups behind a proposed 2026 ballot question to lower the state income tax, and another to trigger more frequent tax refunds, has so far shelled out $1.6 million to gather the signatures for their campaigns, state records show.

The ballot questions are backed by the business-friendly nonprofit Massachusetts Opportunity Alliance. The group argues that a lower income tax would help alleviate the affordability crisis the state is facing. The group has also said wealthy people are leaving Massachusetts to escape taxes, a claim progressive policy groups dispute.

“These proposed laws would help fix this crisis and help make Massachusetts a better, more affordable place to live,” Christopher Anderson, an organizer of the ballot initiative and president of the Massachusetts High Technology Council, said in a statement.

One of the group’s ballot questions would cut the state income tax rate from 5% to 4% — a proposal that taps into a longtime hot-button issue in Massachusetts. Organizers say the second question would result in more tax refunds because of a proposed change to the way the state calculates the limit on how much tax revenue it collects each year.

Republicans regularly knock the state and Gov. Maura Healey for what they claim are burdensome taxes for residents and businesses, while Democrats say the payments help fund essential state services.

In a filing Wednesday with state regulators, the campaign behind the two ballot questions disclosed it had hired a local company earlier this year to gather the tens of thousands of voter signatures it needed to get the measures on next year's ballot.

Ballot campaigns across the country, including in Massachusetts, frequently spend millions and pay people or companies to collect signatures.

In the Bay State, ballot question campaigns regularly spend millions on their efforts. During the 2024 election cycle, various groups ultimately spent more than $21 million to support and oppose a question that nixed the MCAS high school graduation requirement, according to state regulators.

The Massachusetts Opportunity Alliance reported it spent the $1.6 million with a veteran signature gatherer, Harold Hubschman, whose company typically hires hundreds of people to swarm grocery stores and community hot spots with clipboards and petitions.

With an unusually high number of ballot questions with enough signatures to advance, top Beacon Hill Democrats questioned the practice.

“Makes you wonder, how easy is it for these special interest groups to go out and pay someone to get signatures and design questions that support their topics or their personal interests?” House Speaker Ron Mariano said at a press conference last month.

Senate President Karen Spilka also took aim at the groups.

“Sometimes they are presented as grassroots, but when you look behind the curtain and see who is paying for the signatures, it is specific groups,” she said.

Hubschman pushed back, saying his clients also include labor unions and environmentalists, as well as people who support leadership on Beacon Hill.

“Are these people somehow nefarious special interests?” Hubschman said in an interview. “Organizations on either side of the political divide, including organizations that have a lot of members and community support, hire us because this is a very hard thing to do.”