Liberals’ voluntary taxes amount to zilch for Massachusetts

The Boston Herald on how liberals don't want to payer higher taxes:

As you know, a few years back, as a gag, the Legislature passed a bill allowing the state’s pony-tailed, trust-funded liberals to voluntarily pay at the old 5.85 percent income tax rate, rather than at the reduced 5.3 percent rate.

Considering that in 2000, 40 percent of the electorate voted against cutting the state income tax, you might have expected hundreds of thousands of the blow-in drifters now squatting in Cambridge and Brookline and Amherst to voluntarily ante up.

But no. The state, it appears, is teeming with Leona Helmsleys. Taxes are for the little people, not the Beautiful People.

Here are the latest DOR numbers. As of yesterday, 640,783 individual taxpayers had filed their 2008 returns. Of those 640,783, exactly 293 opted to pay at the higher 5.85 percent rate.

Back me up on the math here. If 640,000 is the number, then 6,400 would be 1 percent, and 640 would be one-tenth of 1 percent. And 293 is less than one half of one tenth of 1 percent. So the percentage so far this year is one-twentieth of 1 percent.

An article well worth your time.