The House in April approved a tax relief bill, with an estimated $587 million impact in fiscal 2024 in April. The Senate last month approved its nearly $56 billion fiscal 2024 budget, which earmarked $575 million for to-be-determined tax breaks. “As I’ve said for many months, we will do a tax relief package, and it will be out soon. The Ashland Democrat wouldn’t comment on how May’s state tax revenue numbers - which were 6.7 percent above the most recent monthly benchmark, following an April nosedive - might influence tax relief, saying lawmakers are reviewing the report that came out earlier Monday. The Senate is proceeding with its long-awaited tax relief plan. In comparison, DUA paid out about $1.4 billion in benefits to 400,000 claimants in 2019. In 2020, the state Division of Unemployment Assistance paid over $21 billion in benefits to almost 2.25 million claimants, and in 2021 it paid nearly $12 billion in benefits to over 1.7 million claimants, totaling over $33 billion in benefits paid during 2020-2021. Healey said “no” Monday when asked whether there was something that went unfunded because the federal funds were diverted to cover jobless benefits. It’s unclear how the federal dollars were supposed to be used, instead of footing jobless benefits. “I am confident that the right steps have been taken to make sure that won’t happen again.” I want to work to make sure that we are as protected as much as possible,” Healey said. “That’s a discussion between us and other states and the U.S. Other states experienced “similar complications,” Healey said without offering specific examples. The governor chalked up the confusion to “multiple” unemployment payment programs with “multiple” requirements - and changing requirements - happening simultaneously. Healey also said that at some point, the federal and state accounts became “merged,” which caused the federal dollars to be “inadvertently drawn down.” The money, however, did go to “legitimate, deserving claimants,” Healey said. “There were multiple funds set up during this COVID pandemic time, and for whatever reason, money was drawn from a federal pot instead of a state pot, and we ended up with this deficiency.” Department of Labor,” Healey said, explaining that agency maintains the oversight arm. “Our way that we’re proceeding is to continue to discuss this matter with the U.S. Lawmakers made no mention of needing to dip into the state’s rainy day fund or impose new fees onto the business community to handle any financial pressure. The goal is to reach a resolution that “minimizes any impacts to the commonwealth,” Healey said. Healey said officials only became aware of the matter “very, very recently” due to an audit from an outside firm, despite “multiple” previous audits that failed to catch the error. Last summer, legislative leaders were blindsided by the discovery that the state would be on the hook for nearly $3 billion in mandatory tax relief, upending their plans to pass targeted tax relief proposals, which are still actively circulating on Beacon Hill.īeginning in 2020 and into the pandemic, the state mistakenly pulled from a federal allocation of money, rather than state coffers in the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund. Mariano said officials “don’t even know how much they owe” but gave voice to the possibility there may be a “bill” down the road. “We’re in the fact-finding stage right now, trying to figure out what happened and then what we may owe or not owe,” Spilka said at a press conference following a meeting with House Speaker Ron Mariano, Gov. It’s too early to speculate whether the misuse of the $2.5 billion could impact the Senate’s pending tax relief, Senate President Karen Spilka told reporters Monday afternoon, hours after her chamber’s budget chief told the News Service that tax break proposals would emerge within the next two weeks. STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, JUNE 5, 2023….Top lawmakers are scrambling to figure out how much money, if any, the state might be on the hook for after auditors learned that the Baker administration erroneously spent $2.5 billion in federal funds on jobless benefits that should have been covered by state money during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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