Massachusetts

State Home Page 

Massachusetts Home Page

Governor's Home Page

Argeo Paul Cellucci

Department of Revenue and Finance

Mitchell Adams, Commissioner

The Department of Revenue has established a presence on the Internet. Included on its Online Taxpayer Service Center is a news section (including press releases), the text of the Massachusetts' taxpayer bill of rights (an Adobe pdf file), and back issues of its Taxpayer Advissory Bulletin(TAB).

Rulings and Regulations: The Department of Revenue's Rulings & Regulations Bureau issues documents that explain Massachusetts tax laws and related court decisions, clarify the Department's position on a variety of tax issues, and detail certain Departmental procedures. As part of this service, the Bureau has created a web site that visitors may search by type of by keyword. The site includes:

Taxpayers may also contact the Rulings & Regulations Bureau at (617) 626-3250 to request documents not yet available through the Bureau's web site.

Administrative releases: Included on the Departments web site are the text of the following administrative releases that were released by the Department in 1996:

• Technical Information Releases (TIRs), which inform taxpayers and tax practitioners of DOR's response to changes in federal or state tax laws or to court decisions interpreting those laws;.
• Directives, which concern current Department policy, practice or interpretation, and provide details or supplementary information, clarify ambiguities, resolve inconsistencies or explain and elaborate on issues;
• Letter rulings, which are advisory ruling issued by the Commissioner of Revenue in response to letters from individual taxpayers on specific issues relating to the interpretation or application of the Massachusetts tax laws.

Tax Forms: 1997 tax formsare available from the Department's web site. 1996 and 1995 tax forms are also available.

Taxpayers may request tax forms by calling the Department's main information and forms request line at (617) 887-6367. The in-state toll-free number is 1-800-392-6089.

Massachusetts tax forms and publications can also be obtained through the state's automated document retrieval (Fax on Demand) system.Call (617) 887-1900 using the handset and the keypad on your fax machine.

Unclaimed refunds: The Department of Revenue has compiled a database listing over 3,500 unclaimed refund checks that were returned to the Department by the U.S. Postal Service. By posting this list on the World Wide Web, the Department hopes to locate taxpayers owed refunds before the money is turned over to the Massachusetts State Treasurer for the General Fund. The database is searchable by name or municipality.

Legislation

The The 180th General Court (the Massachusetts Legislature) provides a legislative tracking system that allows search bill histories and bill number searches. It provides the text of session laws.

The Joint Committee on Taxation's home page includes the names of the legislators appointed to the Committee, and a hyper-linked list of matters that have been before the committee.

Judicial Information

The text of Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and Appeals Court decisions are available over the Internet.

Statutes

The text of Massachusetts state statutes are not currently available over the Internet.