July 22, 2026
Revenue generated from the state surtax on wealthier households was up more than 13% last budget year, totaling more than $3.38 billion, the Department of Revenue reported this week.
The Raise Up Massachusetts coalition that led the 2022 push to adopt the 4% surtax on household income above about $1.1 million, known as the “millionaire’s tax,” said fiscal year 2026 was the third year in a row that the surtax generated more than twice DOR’s original estimate of $1.2 billion in annual revenue.
DOR said Monday that it took in precisely $3,380,320,213.11 from the surtax between July 1, 2025 and June 30, 2026. The year prior, DOR said it collected $2.987 billion from the surtax.
“Nearly four years after voters passed the Fair Share Amendment, it’s still surpassing expectations. The skeptics who said multi-millionaires would flee for other states rather than pay their fair share are being proved wrong; the ultra-rich are clearly staying in Massachusetts and paying more in taxes, leading to the tax’s massive overperformance relative to initial projections,” Raise Up said in a statement.
The revenue generated by the surtax is only supposed to be used for education and transportation initiatives and Raise Up specifically highlighted universal free school meals, free community college and free regional transit buses as ways the surtax is making a difference.
Last week, Gov. Maura Healey proposed using $100 million in “projected” and “unbudgeted” surtax revenue to give public schools an additional $112 in aid per student on average.
For a third time, lawmakers appear poised to have a sizeable amount of surtax revenue that will be available for them to dole out in a mid-year budget. The last two years, lawmakers have divvied up the surtax excess in springtime supplemental spending plans.
The fiscal year 2026 budget originally expected to use $2.4 billion in surtax revenue, compared to $3.38 billion collected.
