Connecticut’s revenue commissioner is warning lawmakers to resist tax cuts, while his agency targets a $2.5 billion gap in unpaid taxes with AI, amnesty programs and small-business outreach.
Mark Boughton sometimes considers himself as the skunk at a garden party.
That’s in part because he’s a Republican serving as
commissioner of the state Department of Revenue Services in a Democratic governor’s administration.
Boughton, 62, said he has known Gov. Ned Lamont for two decades, and they have “always been friendly towards each other.” That relationship endured even in 2018, when Boughton sought the GOP nomination for governor and lost in a primary to Bob Stefanowski. Lamont went on to defeat Stefanowski that fall and win his first term.
Boughton said he and Lamont got to know each other even better that year.
“We sat on a lot of panels during the run-up to the 2018 election,” Boughton said. “So we found out we probably had more in common than we did that was different.”
Boughton was the longest-serving mayor of Danbury, winning 10 terms from 2001-20. In February 2021, he was approved by the legislature to serve as Lamont’s DRS commissioner. Lamont later named him senior adviser for infrastructure, a role he continues to hold.
Reappointed in 2023, Boughton said he initially hesitated to accept Lamont’s offer to lead DRS but ultimately saw it as an opportunity to show the state, and country, that political rivals can work together.
“Does he agree with me on everything? No,” Boughton said. “Do I agree with him on everything? No. Are we united in being fiscal conservatives? Absolutely, and that’s why I’m here.”
During a wide-ranging interview in his office at 450 Columbus Blvd. in Hartford, Boughton discussed the impact of the federal One Big Beautiful Bill, the state’s fiscal outlook and his agency’s efforts to strengthen tax compliance.
As lawmakers debate rebates, possible income tax cuts and proposals to raise rates on top earners, Boughton said DRS is preparing to release a new Tax Incidence report that will show high-income taxpayers are leaving Connecticut.
At the same time, the agency is expanding enforcement and compliance efforts to address what it estimates is a $2.5 billion annual tax gap — unpaid taxes owed to the state — including a forthcoming amnesty-style “pathway to compliance” program for first-time offenders and increased use of artificial intelligence to detect fraudulent refunds and underreporting.
Chasing the ‘North Star’
In Boughton’s opinion, both he and Lamont have spent the past several years working toward what he calls the “North Star” of their efforts.
“That is, we want more taxpayers and less taxes,” he said.
Those efforts have included cutting the state income tax, increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit to 40% of the federal level and reducing fees and permit costs.
Boughton also supports Lamont’s proposal for a one-time tax rebate this year that would send checks of up to $200 for single filers and $400 for joint filers, funded by projected surplus revenue. He said he prefers that approach to, for example, a GOP proposal to eliminate state income taxes on tips and overtime pay.
“So for us to do that rebate, it’s about $500 million this year. That’s substantial,” he said. “Tax on tips and overtime is only about $200 million. So we’re putting a lot more money back in people’s pockets.”
Boughton added that former GOP Gov. John Rowland also had done rebates.
“I think it’s a great way to give back to the residents,” he said. “Frankly, it’s their money, and they should be able to spend it the way they want.”
He also cautioned that any rebates or tax cut efforts during this session should be approached with caution.
“We have begun to right-size our tax system,” he said. “If we continue to cut — and this is advice I’ve given the governor — I’m afraid we’re not going to be ready for the lean years. And the lean years are coming, so we’ve got to prepare.”
Following the severe state fiscal crisis in 2014, the state is now required by law to enact a balanced budget. With strict fiscal guardrails in place, the state has reported surpluses in the past several fiscal years.
“Our rainy day fund is full, and we’re paying down our pension debt, but we still have a long way to go,” Boughton said, noting that while the pensions are 65% funded, actuaries prefer 85%. “So I think that I would caution (legislators) to stay the course, but also caution them to keep the guardrails in place and make sure those dollars are going to be spent on reducing our long-term expenditures.”
The OBB
One reason for his advice to remain conservative with the state budget and taxes is his concern over what has happened in Washington, D.C.
The OBB includes more than $1 trillion in federal tax reductions — with a significant share of the benefits flowing to higher-income households and businesses — alongside more than $1 trillion in cuts to health care and nutrition programs.
But it also has other implications, Boughton said.
“I think there were some good things done in the One Big Beautiful Bill, but I think there are other things that maybe are not so good,” he said.
State lawmakers will need to decide whether to conform portions of the federal law to Connecticut’s tax code, a process that could affect state revenues and taxpayer liabilities.
“Every issue has to be decided on its merits by the legislature,” he said.
He cited the no tax on tips as an example. While that is federal law, it does not currently apply to state income tax returns, he said, because Connecticut does not allow for itemizing deductions.
Republicans in the House have proposed a bill that would exempt tips and overtime pay from the state’s personal income tax.
Boughton also said he’s skeptical of bills proposed by Democratic state legislators that seek to increase taxes on the wealthy, including a bill that proposes increasing the top marginal tax rate by 1 percentage point to 7.99%.
“What makes us competitive is that we’re slightly less than Massachusetts and New York,” he said of the state’s current top tax rate at 6.99%.
Before raising that rate, he said, legislators and the governor should “make sure they have the data and the metrics to support that.”
Asked about Massachusetts imposing a 4% surtax on millionaires, which it did in 2022 and has raised $2 billion annually since, Boughton said the claims that the wealthy have not abandoned that state were premature.
He said the tax was imposed midyear, so any millionaire in Massachusetts was “stuck with it.”
“These new years that it’s been in play, they are starting to see an out-migration of taxpayers,” he said.
More importantly, Boughton said, Connecticut’s own data already show movement among high earners. DRS’ forthcoming Tax Incidence report will indicate that “top decile people” are leaving the state, even without an increase in Connecticut’s top marginal tax rate.
“So we’ve got to be careful about how we do this,” Boughton said.
Tax collection
Though policy discussions with the governor are part of his job, Boughton says tax collection is the biggest role DRS plays.
Last year, he noted, DRS prevented $15 million in fraudulent refunds. He said artificial intelligence was able to help the agency determine when individuals filed “10 different forms under 10 different Social Security numbers, and we were able to stop those checks from going out.”
“That’s where something like AI can be a real blessing,” he said.
His agency is currently working on how to address the “tax gap” — the roughly $2.5 billion in tax payments that have not been made.
Despite the agency’s best collection efforts, there’s still about $800 million uncollected at the end of the fiscal year, he said.
To address that, DRS created a “small cash business team” that works with owners of small, mostly cash-payment businesses to help them comply with tax rules.
“They’ve probably recovered $10 million or $11 million so far,” Boughton said.
DRS also is developing a taxpayer app for small businesses to make it easier to deal with daily tax rules, such as filing sales-and-use tax receipts. There is no target launch date for that, he said.
DRS will also soon launch the pathway to compliance amnesty program that will waive the principal and interest for businesses that have not paid taxes, but only for their first offense.
“Those are the kinds of things I think government can do to close the tax gap,” Boughton said, “because we’re going to collect more revenue and make it easier to create more taxpayers.”
