Measures seeking to curb legislative stipends and force open access to Beacon Hill’s records are not the only potential 2026 ballot questions that could reshape how top Democrats approach their work in the coming year.

A group of influential business leaders are in the early stages of pushing proposals that would cut the state’s income tax rate and overhaul the cap on state government’s tax collections, two ideas that could trim billions of dollars from the pool of resources that lawmakers have available to spend to stash away in reserve funds.

Both questions still face a long road to the 2026 ballot, but if they clear the forthcoming hurdles and find support among voters, the measures could upend the status quo under the Golden Dome at a time when “affordability” has emerged as a key theme and many are worried about federal funds evaporating.

The initiative petitions could also force a tax relief debate in the Legislature at a time when lawmakers are worried about reductions in federal aid and Republicans running for governor are trying to show how they differ with Gov. Maura Healey, who plans to seek reelection, on tax and spending issues.

Chris Anderson, president of the Massachusetts High Technology Council and a lead signatory on both initiative petitions, said proponents were spurred into action by “a dramatic shift and a declining business climate” in recent years.

“The tax cut [proposal] is particularly significant because it would give people meaningful relief now, and people generally feel like the costs in Massachusetts are pretty excessive,” Anderson said.

One question would trim the state’s 5% income tax rate to 4% over a three-year period. The other would alter the formula for the limit on state revenue growth in a way that organizers say would make it much more likely to be triggered and therefore return money to taxpayers more frequently.

The Massachusetts Opportunity Alliance, a coalition formed by the high tech council, the Pioneer Institute and the Massachusetts Competitive Partnership, in a report estimated the income-tax cut could save the average taxpayer $1,336 per year.

The change would also carry massive implications for the state budget.

“Back of the envelope, a percentage point change in the income tax rate is about $5 billion,” said Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation President Doug Howgate, whose group has not taken a position on either proposal. “A $5 billion change in resources is a huge change in resources, period.”

Anderson said he thinks tax revenues would still grow during the three-year process of lowering the income tax rate based on recent trends in total collections.

As the nascent campaign unfolds, the proposal is likely to draw opposition from organized labor groups that have scored several major wins in recent years, including passage in 2022 of a surtax on high earners to fund education and transportation investments. (The ballot question would change the underlying income tax rate, not the 4% surtax now enshrined in the state constitution.)

Jessica Tang, president of the American Federation of Teachers Massachusetts chapter, argued that state government can better achieve affordability for its residents by investing in schools, health care, emergency services and more.

“We know what working people want right now. We need affordable housing. We want a strong economy. People really are attracted to high-quality health care and public education and safety,” she said. “It’s because of those factors that people want to live in and invest in Massachusetts, and so this ballot question would do literally the opposite of that because it would result in stripping a lot of the services that we’re trying to maintain.”

The other question backed by leaders of the High Tech Council and the Pioneer Institute would update the voter law known as Chapter 62F that spent decades in the shadows before bursting back into the spotlight in 2022.

That measure, which the tech council supported when Citizens for Limited Taxation pushed it in 1986, requires state government to issue refunds if tax collections surpass an allowable threshold.

The limit increases based on the prior year’s cap as well as wage and salary growth. The Mass Opportunity Alliance said that formula “calculates an overly high limit.”

The potential ballot question would tie the formula to actual revenue collections, not to prior revenue limits. MOA’s analysis said if that change had been in place since the law’s enactment, taxpayers would have received 24 refunds in a four-decade span instead of only two.

Retailers Association of Massachusetts President Jon Hurst, who was one of the first voters to sign the proposal to update the tax cap formula, described the existing measure as “a right-headed type of common-sense control on government spending that never worked very well.”

“You guys know better than most that the state budget expenditures — and a lot of local government expenditures — have far exceeded inflation, far exceeded family incomes, far exceeded growth in the economy,” Hurst said. “That can’t go on forever. There needs to be some constraints.”

State government has significantly increased spending in recent years. The fiscal year 2026 budget Healey signed in July carries a bottom line of $60.9 billion, about 31% higher than the fiscal year 2021 state budget.

Over the past five years, total wages and salaries in Massachusetts have grown about 22%, according to Federal Reserve Economic Data.

“Reining in the state’s ability to spend excessive state tax revenue in certain years will prevent the kind of overcommitments that the state makes, which then generally feeds the need to find new revenue sources or increase new taxes in order to fill gaps,” Anderson said.

The Massachusetts electorate has been handed several opportunities to make major tax decisions. In 2000, nearly 60% of voters approved a ballot question that called for gradually slashing the income tax rate from 5.95% down to 5%. Lawmakers then slowed the rollout, and the rate took its final downward step in 2020.

In 2002, voters rejected another measure that would have outright eliminated the income tax by a margin of 55% to 45%. Eight years later, a question cutting the sales tax from 6.25% to 3% faltered with 57% of voters opposed. And after an extended campaign that involved several stops and starts, Massachusetts passed a ballot question enshrining the surtax in the state constitution in 2022.

Tang said asking voters to cut the income tax rate so soon after they approved higher taxation on the wealthy poses a “contradiction.” She pointed to a push for Massachusetts to raise a tax on excess foreign profits.

“We’re trying to fight for a corporate fair share legislation right now that would help, again, to bring more revenue to fill the gaps that we’re already seeing,” she said. “There’s so much contradiction and dissonance in [the proposed income tax cut], and just wrapping my head around the fact that this would even be a possible ballot question — it just seems so out of touch with the realities that working people are facing today.”