Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation Executive Vice President Doug Howgate, who will soon take over as the group’s next leader, said the first three months of tax collections historically “bore little connection to revenue trends in subsequent months.”

“The economic environment of the last two years, certainly from a state budget standpoint, has been absolutely unprecedented, and so I think folks are wise to assume that things become precedented again,” Howgate told the News Service. “I think all of us, as you look at the news, it wouldn’t be too hard to find signs that, ‘Oh gee. Is the revenue roller coaster going to take a different turn?'”