"There's so much up in the air right now," said Eileen McAnneny, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. "This will provide some stability for the state and local governments while they wait for details of a federal aid package."

Budget watchdogs are warning of more pain to come. The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, in a report released last week, projected it could take five years for revenues to exceed prepandemic levels, and that the state could be looking at revenue that’s $6 billion less than what was expected.

The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation predicts the state will see a $4.4 billion drop in tax revenues in the fiscal year that begins July 1, a figure that could grow depending on how long people are out of work. Eileen McAnneny, the group's president, said while tax proposals are likely shelved…

MTF has released the 49th Edition of the Municipal Financial Data pamphlet, an annual publication that summarizes key financial issues for the 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts for fiscal 2019 including an overview of major revenue and spending trends, tax rates, debt characteristics, and other…

“Simply stated, COVID-19 is a Cat 5 hurricane hitting global economies simultaneously,” MTF wrote in its analysis. “The initial impacts are staggering -- to people and families, first responders, health care professionals, employers and employees, and the world’s economy. The scale and duration of…

Massachusetts is facing scrutiny on two fronts as public markets collapse and pressure on government pensions for its nearly 300,000 public employees and retirees and budgets rise. The commonwealth’s credit rating could take the real hit in all of this. The Boston Globe reports “the business-backed…

The analysis by the center is similar to a report released March 17 by the business-backed Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. The foundation analysis estimated a lower revenue falloff — $300 million to $500 million – in the current fiscal year. But it estimated a similar impact — $2 billion to $3…

"The COVID-19 pandemic is a public health emergency that is causing a public finance emergency in Massachusetts,"said a new analysis of the state's fiscal outlook by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation published Monday. The analysis found that $3.6 billion of the estimated $30.3 billion the…

The margin for error already seemed slim: The business-backed Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation issued a report on Wednesday highlighting several uncertain aspects of Governor Charlie Baker’s spending plan for the next fiscal year. MTF said Baker’s plans to accelerate sales tax collections ($237…

While MTF generally believes there are several infirmities with the current proposal to tax GILTI revenue, trying to use this revenue to finance transportation is especially ill-suited because the revenue is uncertain, will be difficult to collect in the short-term and is harder to leverage for…