Name: Bay State border-jumping tax grab way out of bounds
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Bay State border-jumping tax grab way out of bounds

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GET BREAKING NEWS IN YOUR BROWSER. CLICK HERE TO TURN ON NOTIFICATIONS.XBy | If Massachusetts were a diner, it’s motto would be “Home of the World’s Most Expensive ‘Free Lunch.’”Massachusetts liberals love giving money away and leaving Massachusetts taxpayers holding the tab. But thanks to the COVID-19 crisis, they’ve found a way to game the system and leave the free-lunch check on someone else’s table:New Hampshire.Turns out that since March, Charlie Baker and Co. have been collecting their 5% “commuter tax” from New Hampshire workers who haven’t crossed the state line in months. Baker ordered Granite Staters to stay home, then announced the state’s going to tax them as though they are working here, anyway.Imagine opening your mail and finding a meals-tax bill from Boston based on how often you&nbsp;used to eat out&nbsp;before Mayor Marty shut down your favorite restaurant, and you’ve got the picture.According to the Department of Revenue’s edict, and I quote:“For the duration of the Massachusetts COVID-19 state of emergency, all compensation received for personal services performed by a non-resident who, immediately prior to the state of emergency, was an employee engaged in performing such services in Massachusetts … will continue to be treated as Massachusetts source income subject to personal income tax.”I just love that phrase “will continue to be treated as.” It’s like your girlfriend throwing you out of the apartment, then announcing that, for the purposes of the rent payment, you will “continue to be treated as” her roommate.Except for the, you know,&nbsp;roommating&nbsp;part.This isn’t the first time Massachusetts has messed with New Hampshire. Remember when Gov. Deval Patrick tried to pursue taxes on out-of-state purchases by Massachusetts residents in the Town Fair Tire case? (The Massachusetts courts shot him down.)And I love the stories of Gov. Meldrim Thomson threatening to sic New Hampshire staties on Massachusetts revenuers spying on Bay Staters crossing the border for cheaper booze back in the ’70s.Not surprisingly, New Hampshire doesn’t like it any more this time around. Republican Gov. Chris Sununu announced his Department of Justice is going to&nbsp;review the MA DOR’s actions to see if they’re “engaging in improper taxation of our citizens.”Even liberal Democrats are dunking on “Taxachusetts” over this. State Sen. Dan Feltes, who’s running in the Dem primary for governor, called Massachusetts’ commuter-tax scam “unfair, anti-worker (and) anti-public health.”“We cannot stand idly by as Massachusetts now tries to tax New Hampshire residents who are working remotely, acting as if they were still working full-time in Massachusetts proper,” Feltes wrote the MA DOR yesterday.That part about “public health” is important. Massachusetts said staying home was a vital public health decision. So why are they taxing people for doing what they were told? Why punish the good guys?Massachusetts doesn’t have to. Even the liberal city of Philadelphia, with the highest wage tax in the country (about 3.5% for commuters), is letting suburbanites forced to work from home request a rebate for their time locked out of the city.Not Massachusetts. Instead, Charlie Baker embraces the Big-Lie approach: Working from home in Nashua? That counts as Massachusetts, so pay up. Who you gonna believe — me, or your lyin’ GPS?What makes this move by money-grubbing Massachusetts liberals so perfect is that everybody knows they’re lying. That these workers aren’t actually commuters, that they don’t owe the money Massachusetts is taking from them.Right now there’s some low-wage single mom in Salem, N.H., trying to do her job on the family laptop she’s forced to share with her “remote-learning” kids, and the Baker administration is re-inventing reality just to shake her down for Happy Meal money.All in the name of progressive liberalism, of course.You can’t make this stuff up, folks. Well, except in Massachusetts, where they make stuff up all the time.Michael Graham is a regular contributor to the Boston Herald. Follow him on Twitter @IAmMGraham.Sign up for email newslettersClose

GET BREAKING NEWS IN YOUR BROWSER. CLICK HERE TO TURN ON NOTIFICATIONS.XBy | If Massachusetts were a diner, it’s motto would be “Home of the World’s Most Expensive ‘Free Lunch.’”Massachusetts liberals love giving money away and leaving Massachusetts taxpayers holding the tab. But thanks to the COVID-19 crisis, they’ve found a way to game the system and leave the free-lunch check on someone else’s table:New Hampshire.Turns out that since March, Charlie Baker and Co. have been collecting their 5% “commuter tax” from New Hampshire workers who haven’t crossed the state line in months. Baker...

Bay State border-jumping tax grab way out of bounds

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