The Massachusetts Senate on Thursday once again shot down a measure pushed by Boston Mayor Michelle Wu that aimed to mitigate painful tax increases for homeowners, and separately approved an alternative tax relief proposal City Hall has not embraced.
Thursday marked the first time the full Senate formally weighed in on Wu’s proposal, which would temporarily increase how much Boston can tax commercial properties relative to residential properties, in order to ease the transition to higher taxes for homeowners.
The legislation has been the subject of a bitter, nearly two year-long battle between Wu’s administration and powerful Democrats in the upper chamber, who blocked her proposal from even getting a vote on Beacon Hill three times prior to Thursday’s vote. Instead, several state senators proposed alternative tax relief measures, which the Senate was debating Thursday.
In a bid to revive Wu’s measure, state Senator Michael Rush, a Democrat from West Roxbury, had filed an amendment that largely mirrored Wu’s proposal, tacking it on to a separate property tax relief bill sponsored by state Senator Will Brownsberger. But Rush’s amendment failed 5-33 after senators debated its merits for roughly 30 minutes.
Brownsberger, who voted against the amendment, argued it would set a bad precedent to allow Boston a temporary exemption from the state law that allows municipalities to tax commercial properties only at a rate up to 175 percent of the residential rate.
“This is a ceiling, this is a guardrail. This is saying we’re not going to go further away from that fundamental principle of everybody pays the same,” Brownsberger said on the Senate floor Thursday. “If we voted for this amendment and passed it today, the result would be that we would have this request from every other city that classifies.”
This is a developing story, check back for updates.
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