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Ideally, commercial licenses would only be renewed by filing a 1040/1099 indicating that at least 50% of the taxpayers' gross income was derived from the sale of fish. That's the way it has always been in NY and some other states that issue commercial licenses.
I also wonder how many non-residents are filing Mass tax returns. I have always had to file returns in every state in which I have earned income. Some markets pay by check--some pay by cash. My sense is a lot of cash transactions don't get reported to any state, or to the IRS.
I have no problems with reciprocity--but to me, the height of idiocy is Mass issuing licenses to anglers who either reside in gamefish states, or who live in grandfathered states where Mass anglers either couldn't get a license at all, or couldn't get bass tags.
I also have no problem with Mass grandfathering existing licenses to out-of-staters, but issuing new licenses to people who live in states where we can't get a commercial license is wrong.
It's a different game now, with ASMFC and hard commercial quotas. Mass is doing its full time commercials a disservice. DMF cares more about licensing fees than its own resident commercials who actually make a living from the sea. And that is wrong, any way you slice it.
I'm not pointing fingers at anyone who plays by the rules. Report your catches, pay your taxes, and my problem isn't with you--it's with the rule makers.
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