Committee asks Joint Fiscal to model income‑tax options to fund education; members warn of competitiveness risks

Speaker 1, Committee member, asked staff to bring Joint Fiscal in to “do a presentation on income tax, what it looks like, how it's structured,” and to model how various income‑tax options would affect education funding and taxpayers.

Committee members framed the request around competitiveness and workforce recruitment. Speaker 1 said a back‑of‑the‑envelope calculation suggested an income‑tax approach "would probably double the income tax rate," and raised the prospect that a high top rate could create "real competitive issues" for attracting two‑income professional households such as doctors and school administrators.

Members asked Joint Fiscal to look for revenue‑neutral approaches and smaller, targeted adjustments. Speaker 1 suggested modest bracket tweaks — for example, raising the top bracket by a quarter of a percent to match Massachusetts — as a partial option, while noting such changes "won't generate a whole lot of money" but could help with recruitment pressure.

Speakers also flagged uncertainty in the near term: Speaker 1 cited an approximate top‑bracket threshold of $284,000 per couple and estimated possible revenue differences in the range of $6–9 million under current formulations. The committee did not take a vote; instead members directed staff to have Joint Fiscal prepare formal models on revenue, bracket thresholds, and distributional impacts.

The committee emphasized the need to consider the interaction of any tax changes with housing availability and other burdens. Speaker 1 recalled testimony from the CFO of North Country Hospital that recruiting clinicians is hampered both by housing scarcity and by tax burdens, and asked the briefing to include likely impacts on workforce recruitment.

Next steps: Joint Fiscal will be asked to present detailed revenue and incidence models at a future meeting so the committee can weigh tradeoffs before any bill drafting or referral.