The driver of all the disruption: a shift to remote work that took hold when COVID hit, but has quickly become a permanent change in how white-collar workers do their jobs. The report says the rate is now “settling” at about 30 percent of work being done remotely.

“This is not a Boston phenomenon,” said Doug Howgate, president of the Taxpayers Foundation. But how well the region fares under the new reality, he said, is very much under our control. The question now is “how Boston reacts to a global phenomenon,” said Howgate.

Doug Howgate, president of the business-backed Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, said he was happy the negotiators included just about every element in both the House and Senate proposals, even if some were scaled back.

“They really included some version of everything,” he said.

“We’ve really been about 20 years since the last major tax relief," said Doug Howgate, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. "Your tax code can get out of whack with where your residents are and where you want to be."

The business-backed Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation opposed the change. It noted, however, that a recent analysis by the Department of Revenue suggested the impact would be limited because more couples would file separately on both their state and federal tax returns.

House and Senate conferees have released a compromise tax bill that includes an impactful combination of tax cuts to help people and employers in Massachusetts. The $951 million package includes a total of 17 different tax relief provisions, each of which targets issues of cost and competitiveness. The total Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 cost is $571 million, with a net impact to the budget that fits within the amount set aside for tax relief in the recently signed FY 2024 spending plan.

“Massachusetts hasn’t really done tax relief in 20 years,” said Doug Howgate, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, which this week released its latest report that insists the “package is paid for, affordable, and overdue.”

“You know every 20 years it’s a good idea to take a look at your tax code,” he told the editorial board. “It’s about time we do that. Times change and circumstances change.”

A new report by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation points to huge post-pandemic jumps in state revenue before urging the Legislature to use the time left in the year to finally get their act together on tax cuts.

According to the MTF, the waiting routine is getting kind of old.

Six months after Governor Healey filed her administration’s original tax relief bill and one month after a Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 budget that reflects the cost of a tax relief package was signed into law, House and Senate conferees have yet to produce their version of a final tax package. MTF has written extensively on the need for sustainable tax relief, the specifics of each legislative proposal, and made recommendations for the final bill.

The MTF Tax Thought Leadership Group will host Supreme Judicial Court Associate Justice Dalila Argaez Wendlandt.  Justice Wendlandt, appointed to the SJC by Governor Baker in 2020, has written for the court in several recently decided tax cases, including VAS Holdings.  The event will begin with a brief update on tax developments on Beacon Hill and then we will welcome Justice Wendlandt for a conversation.

Doug Howgate, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation think tank, said the escalating credits designed to prime housing development take aim at the lack of affordable housing strangling many Bay Staters.

“This has a significant cost over time, but when you think about our goals for housing production and mitigating costs in those areas, clearly this is something there’s a great deal of support for,” Howgate said.