Massachusetts Supreme Court rules against Deval Patrick’s New Hampshire tax grab

  Massachusetts governor, Deval Patrick had been trying to infringe on the businesses of New Hampshire, as well as New Hampshire’s state’s rights, by trying to force New Hampshire businesses to collect a Massachusetts sales tax on residents of Massachusetts.

  Needless to say, that did not sit well with the governor of New Hampshire, or the rest of New Hampshire’s legislature for that matter. New Hampshire quickly passed a new law that would “prohibit New Hampshire businesses from acting as tax agents for Massachusetts” and for the first time ever I agreed with John Lynch as he signed the bill into law.

  But just to add insult to injury the Massachusetts Supreme Court today ruled that Deval Patrick had no right to try to force New Hampshire businesses to collect his taxes for him.

  The new New Hampshire law and the ruling from the Massachusetts Supreme Court do not absolve Massachusetts resident from paying taxes on goods bought in New Hampshire under the Massachusetts “use tax” law. Residents are still required to report all goods bought in New Hampshire on their state income tax returns but that law is not enforceable, and nobody is stupid enough to do that, which is why Deval Patrick tried to force New Hampshire businesses to collect a tax that he was incapable of collecting. But these two turn of events do show us that even in today’s over-federalized central government that the states do still have some of the rights that were originally guaranteed in the constitution.