Toohey Supports Sales Tax Holiday, Especially for Border Community

Shaun P. Toohey before a joint City Council and School Committee meeting in 2016. (WHAV News photograph.)

Shaun P. Toohey, Republican candidate for the Third Essex state representative seat, said Monday he supports legislation Gov. Charlie Baker filed last week, calling for a sales tax holiday for Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 19 and 20.

He said the legislation is particularly important to Haverhill since it borders sales-tax-free New Hampshire. The two-day break from the state’s 6.25 percent sales tax has been enacted 11 of the past 13 years and is supported by retailers because it increases their sales during an otherwise slow period. The legislature did not pass a sales holiday last year, because revenues were slow, Toohey recalled in a statement.

“We need to help our small businesses in a changing economy, because the retail business is rapidly changing,” he said. “In Haverhill, we are competing with New Hampshire and online retailers who are not charging sales tax. A two-day holiday is the least we can do at this time, and if elected state representative, I will utilize my experience as a small business owner to propose pro-growth economic policies that boost our economy and help create jobs” Toohey added.

Toohey is the only Republican so far to formally announce for the state representative seat being vacated by Brian S. Dempsey in September. Other declared candidates are Haverhill School Committeeman Paul A. Magliocchetti and City Councilor Andy Vargas, both Democrats.

Toohey is vice president of Seaman & Toohey Insurance Agency, president of KC Carpets and regional vice president and mortgage banker at Mortgage Equity Partners. He is a member of Kiwanis and a former Riverside Bradford Baseball and Valley Jr Warrior hockey coach. He and his wife Tatum have been married 19 years and have two children Delainey and Jack.

9 thoughts on “Toohey Supports Sales Tax Holiday, Especially for Border Community

  1. So Toohey supports the tax holiday. So what ? It isn’t going to happen and he knows it. So it’s easy to support a cause knowing you won’t have to fight for it. Just like those two faced republicans who voted for repealing Obamacare for years, knowing Obama would never sign the bill. What have you done up until now to fight for the sales tax holiday ? What have you done to fight for lower taxes lately ? Were you fighting against the gas tax ? Did you speak out about all the tax money spent on the private Harbor Place development ? Didn’t think so.

    How about thinking of something new ? As Mr Edwards stated above, put your thinking cap on and figure out how to make the current system work. Kittery did.

  2. Where and when was that photo taken. Was it at an official government meeting or part of a campaign event. That great news at any rate. i have a feeling that all three of the Rep candidates support that idea. However Mr. Toohey beat them to the punch. The other candidates have yet to speak about the issues that concern our city and this district.

    Yes the sales tax is a big issue for us and our merchants. Perhaps a lesson in how to compete can be learned by a trip to Kittery Maine. Kittery’s amazingly busy outlet stores such as Kittery Trading Post charge a higher sales tax than our Massachusetts merchants are forced to charge. Yet they are just across the river from tax free New Hampshire.
    That issue is a small first step Mr. Toohey. We the voters and residents are waiting to hear from all three candidates with their platform that helps us and the entire state of Massachusetts. Some of their platform should include: more money for cities and towns to be earmarked for public safety, better pay for our educators, and some sound solutions for the eradication of drug abuse. I wish them all the best and will eventually cast my vote for the candidate proves he can do something positive for us. They have big shoes to fill and will be unable to come close to helping the way Brian Dempsey
    did. Our biggest issues : money for public safety and education as well as illicit drug use.

  3. “The legislature did not pass a sales holiday last year, because revenues were slow” –

    Dempsey and friends are responsible for the $60 Billion-dollar hole (not all one-time payments) in Massachusetts, with their own bond disclosures stating deficits will continue going forward nearing one-billion per year. Beacon Hill will have to issue evermore debt to meet the funding gaps which will economically strain households, while at the same time hope nothing goes wrong. Massachusetts is a top contender for the worst fiscally responsible state in the country, with Boston coming in at number one in income disparity. 40% of the budget goes to Medicaid alone because we have some of the highest healthcare costs in the country (with questionable outcomes) and no will to fix it thanks to crony capitalism to control COSTS.

    Massachusetts isn’t receiving a “tax holiday” not because revenues are short YoY, it’s because of decades of Beacon Hill policy and terrible governing. Beacon Hill pols are great at picking winners & losers, nepotism, and cronyism, then via theft, making The People pay for their behavior. Of course, in one of the most historic “eat cake” moments in Beacon Hill History, they decided to give themselves massive pay raises, $18 millions worth. They also tied their raises to judicial pay, which bars the possibility of voters putting the raises to a ballot measure. Brilliant.

    So as Dempsey goes off into the sunset to make his lobbying millions, his reward for being loyal to “pay-to-play” and wealthy donors, it will be interesting which Haverhill pols can garner the millions of theft monies to support the city thanks to terrible decisions of the past. Whoever wins Dempsey’s seat will have to take the status quo of groveling, watching & waiting to see which way Speaker DeLeo votes on “the board”, and hope to get the scraps by staying in his good graces. Anyone that claims they will be an independent voice on Beacon Hill is delusional, and most likely make promises that simply will never be kept, just like nearly all career politicians.

    • Addendum: Just in case there’s any question to what Beacon Hill and Dempsey did during their reign of economic terror, unlike the rest of the country, Beacon hill has driven out the best jobs for low skill people here: Manufacturing. Those jobs were good paying union jobs that Massachusetts Families could rely on to live not a wealthy lifestyle, but keep them in the middle-class. Instead Dempsey and friends drove those jobs out of the state all the while promising to bring them back. They lied. Again.

      That’s TAX REVENUE lost thanks once again to bad governing. so while The United States loses ground in trade thanks to cheap/slave labor, and in some areas improving, Massachusetts continues to destroy jobs for Americans. Sure, if you’re a low skill immigrant that can’t speak English, an H-1B/H-2B, the doors are wide open, Beacon Hills union supporters are more than happy to exploit the poor and whatever is left of the lower working classes for their own benefit. If no job? No problem, make the rest pay and go without so they can fall into our overburdened social safety nets.

      https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=eFUC

      • Great posts, Duncan!

        There is a direct linear relationship between the social and economic decline of the City of Haverhill and Brian Dempsey beginning his career in politics in the early 90s. Proof that his advocacy of liberal public policy, first as a city councilor, and then as a state rep has lead to the ruination of this city is indisputable.

        Yet, the city is chuck full of brain dead liberals clueless to what he represented and the irreversible negative affects his career has had on the city. They mindlessly decry that his leaving creates a situation of “big shoes to fill” as if his bringing funding back to the city that he personally destroyed makes him some kind of philanthropic hero.

  4. The Massachusetts “Tax Holiday” is confirmation by the elected hacks that they’re screwing consumers and businesses every other day of the year. They act as if they’re doing us a favor by giving people a break from supporting their hackarama for a couple of days. They need funds to support all the pay raises they voted themselves, so it ain’t going to happen this year.

    Scott…Congrats on taking a stand on this issue even though the liberal hacks in the legislature have already committed to not supporting it. Currently The Retailers Association of Massachusetts is proposing a ballot initiative for this November to lower the state sales tax from 6.25% to 4.5%. If you really want to put your liberal democrat opponents on the defensive the best thing you cold do for your campaign is to strongly support this issue. It goes without saying no democrat will support lowering taxes.