The Massachusetts Senate plans to unveil its fiscal 2024 budget proposal soon, but it remains unclear when the branch will tackle a tax reform package.

The Senate will share an annual budget plan later this month, a spokesman for Senate Ways and Means Chairman said, coming on the heels of the House of Representatives approving a $56.2 billion budget on Wednesday after three days of largely closed-door discussions. 

The House this month approved and sent a bevy of tax cuts, which will eventually total nearly $1.1 billion, to the Senate, including expanding the child care and dependent care tax credit and overhauling the estate tax. The tax relief was then factored into the annual budget bill that cleared the House Wednesday night.

It’s likely the Senate’s tax plan will be rolled out before its budget recommendation, similar to how Gov. Maura Healey and the House announced their pitches, the spokesman indicated. Senate President Karen Spilka, who this month affirmed her support for pursuing “progressive, permanent tax reform,” declined Thursday to pinpoint when her chamber’s tax cuts will emerge.

“But we want to make sure that one of my primary goals is, as usual, allow members—the senators—to have sufficient time to discuss, and debate, and digest, and share what they want to be in it,” Spilka told the News Service.

Senators do have a template to work from—the tax relief plan it approved, and then shelved, during the summer of 2022.

The House, echoing Healey’s signature tax relief proposal, wants to create a refundable $600 tax credit for families and caregivers. The branch also approved increasing the senior circuit breaker tax and rental deduction cap.

In a bid to make Massachusetts more competitive, the House moved to bump the estate tax threshold from $1 million to $2 million while eliminating the so-called cliff effect, as well as gradually slashing the short-term capital gains rate from 12 percent to 5 percent.

In their budget, state representatives approved hefty investments in education, environmental agencies, transportation and child care. The Lottery could be allowed to sell games online, should the House’s successful proposal gain traction in the Senate.

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