FOR BEACON HILL Democrats, who have recoiled at the prospect of a ballot measure that could take $5 billion in annual revenue off the table, there is one easy way out: hope that the Supreme Judicial Court throws the question off the ballot after it hears a challenge to the initiative petition on Monday.

The high court is scheduled to hear arguments in a suit fighting the petition backed by influential business groups, which would cut the state income tax from 5 to 4 percent over three years.

Researchers at Tufts University and the business-backed Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation estimate that the change could reduce state revenue by more than $5 billion per year once fully implemented. Annual savings for taxpayers would vary depending on individual circumstances, according to the two reports, hovering around $1,000 for the median filer.

Legislative leaders have largely met the proposal with a curled lip. Speaker Ron Mariano described the approach to tax reform as “ham-fisted,” and legislators have indicated that they might respond with a tax increase elsewhere if voters usher the measure through.

They would no doubt welcome a ruling from the SJC that the question cannot go before voters, but the case against the question rests on a technical challenge that is rarely successful.

The lawsuit challenging the tax-cut measure was filed in February by eight Massachusetts voters backed by the progressive advocacy group Raise Up Massachusetts. It turns on a specific flaw in the official summary of the petition prepared by Attorney General Andrea Campbell that appeared on the petition that voters signed to qualify the question to advance.

The summary says the proposed law would lower tax rates on “(1) personal taxable income consisting of interest and dividends, and (2) personal taxable income other than interest, dividends or capital gain income, such as wages and salaries.” That language tells voters that capital gains are excluded, but under state law the change would automatically cut the capital gains rate, too.

The plaintiffs’ brief calls that an egregious error. The petition that voters signed, it argues, “affirmatively refers to capital gains, only to say — wrongly — that they are excluded from the scope of the measure.” A voter who might support cutting taxes on wages, but opposes a cut in taxes on capital gains, which flow disproportionately to higher-income residents, was given a false picture of the possible measure, the challenge claims.

The AG’s brief defends the summary as accurate, arguing that the capital gains effect flows from a separate statute, not the law impacted by the initiative itself. In a footnote, however, her office concedes that if the court finds the summary unfair, “the appropriate remedy is removal of [the petition] from the ballot.”

Proponents of the ballot question, including Pioneer Institute executive director Jim Stergios, are banking on the court’s historical reluctance to rule a question out of order because of the summary.

“This Court has not kept a measure off the ballot due to the Attorney General’s summary in nearly a century,” they wrote in their filing, and booting the measure would “override the will of tens of thousands of voters” – a reference to the nearly 75,000 signatures of registered voters that proponents had to submit.

The Legislature faces a deadline Wednesday to act on the petition. If they do nothing and the SJC doesn’t kill the question, the ballot campaign must collect another batch of about 12,500 signatures before advancing to the ballot, where lawmakers suggest the outcome is something of a foregone conclusion.

“There aren’t many people out there that’re going to go to the polls and … not vote to give themselves a tax cut,” Mariano told reporters in March. “So we think it’s going to pass and create a whole set of other problems for us that we have to deal with.”

Doug Howgate, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, noted that when voters take to the ballot box to slash taxes – such as ballot measures on the gas tax and an income tax proposal about two decades ago – the Legislature tends to act along “some consistent themes.” They can “spend less, raise more revenue, or use reserves,” he said. “Based on prior experiences, they tend to use a mix of all three.”

A ruling is expected within 130 days. By then, the legislative action deadline will have long passed, and Beacon Hill’s neatest escape hatch will be gone.

What’s left, if the court lets the question proceed, are three paths, none of which lawmakers are eager to take: negotiate a compromise with proponents that prompts them to withdraw the question; campaign against the tax cut; or enact other tax increases, if the question passes, in order to blunt or offset its impact on state revenue.

In a statement Thursday, a spokesperson for Mariano said the House “continues to hear from members of the business community who know that the proposed income tax ballot question is incredibly irresponsible. We remain open to conversations about real solutions to the affordability and competitiveness challenges facing Massachusetts.”