Report: Number of millionaires in Mass. has actually gone up since new tax took effect (2025)

Local News

Since the Fair Share Amendment, or the so-called “millionaires tax,” passed in 2022, Massachusetts has seen an increase in high earners.

By Molly Farrar

April 28, 2025 | 7:40 PM

3 minutes to read

Since the Fair Share Amendment, or the so-called “millionaires tax,” passed in 2022, Massachusetts has seen an increase in high earners, according to a new report from a progressive research organization.

The Institute for Policy Studies, which is based in D.C., released a report Monday that the number of millionaires by net worth increased by 38.6 percent from 2022 to 2024, from around 440,000 people in Massachusetts to more than 612,000. Their collective wealth also grew significantly, from $1.6 trillion to $2.2 trillion, or 37.7 percent.

The Institute, using data from WealthX, also reported a significant increase in people with net worths greater than $50 million from 2022 to 2024. Since 2010, both the millionaire and $50 million or more bracket have “skyrocketed” in Massachusetts, the report said.

The Fair Share Act, passed as a ballot question in November 2022 by state voters, passed with 51.9 percent in favor of an additional 4 percent surtax on income over $1 million. The funds would be put toward education and transportation.

During the campaign season, opponents to the surtax argued that high earners would flee the state. The report notes that high-net-worth people “tend to be less mobile and exhibit lower rates of migration compared to the general public.”

“Their family, business, and social networks deeply root them to amenity rich locales, thus higher income taxes do not compel the overwhelming majority of millionaires to move across state lines,” the report said.

In 2022, there were 27,270 filers in Massachusetts with more than $1 million, according to IPS’s analysis of IRS data and other data, accounting for .8 percent of all tax filers that year. The IRS has not released data for 2023.

The report, authored by researcher Omar Ocampo, called Massachusetts “a model for states interested in progressive taxation.”

The earnings from the tax surpassed the legislature’s estimations. Last fiscal year, state officials said the surtax had generated $2.2 billion, more than double the $1 billion initially budgeted, according to the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, which was supportive of the amendment.

With the funds, the state has increased child-care slots for low-income families, invested in universal Pre-K, increased financial aid for public higher education, heavily invested in the MBTA, and MassDOT rail projects, according to the state.

The report said that 2,642 ultra high net worth individuals in Massachusetts, or individuals with more than $50 million, have a collective wealth of more than $500 billion. A 3 percent tax increase on that bracket could yield $11 billion in revenue, the report said.

A spokesperson for Raise Up, which championed Fair Share in 2022, said the organization isn’t pursuing a wealth tax but instead is focused on a “corporate fair share” policy to force a small number of mega-corporations to pay the state’s existing corporate tax rates to close offshore tax loopholes.

“As Fair Share revenue continues to surpass expectations, this is further evidence that multi-millionaires are not fleeing the state in response to the new tax – they are staying here, paying more in taxes, and enjoying the stronger transportation and public education systems that Fair Share dollars are funding,” said Shanique Rodriguez, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Voter Table and a member of the Raise Up Massachusetts steering committee.

The IPS report, which studied higher state taxes on high-income earners, also showed a similar trend in the state of Washington, where state lawmakers levied a higher tax rate on $250,000 in capital gains. The millionaire class there grew by nearly 47 percent.

“The positive impact of progressive and wealth taxation cannot be overstated,” IPS’s report said. “If well designed and targeted to those at the very top of the income and wealth distribution, it has the potential to not only improve economic and racial equity in the tax code, but also to raise significant revenue that can help balance budgets, spur productive public investment, grow existing social programs, and create new economic initiatives that empower the working-class.”