West Virginia
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January 9, 2024 West Virginia: Who Pays? 7th Edition
West Virginia Download PDF All figures and charts show 2024 tax law in West Virginia, presented at 2023 income levels. Senior taxpayers are excluded for reasons detailed in the methodology.… -
blog October 26, 2022 Measures on the November Ballot Could Improve or Worsen State Tax Codes
In a couple of weeks, voters in a handful of states will weigh in on several tax-related ballot measures that could make state tax codes more equitable and raise money… -
ITEP Work in Action February 15, 2022 West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy: House Personal Income Tax Cut Plan Largely Benefits Wealthy, Not Fiscally Sustainable
The West Virginia Legislature has introduced a bill to cut and eventually eliminate the state’s personal income tax. The House Finance Committee voted to advance that bill to the House… -
ITEP Work in Action March 31, 2021 West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy: Senate Income Tax Cut Plan is More of the Same: Tax Cuts for the Wealthy, Tax Increases and Budget Cuts for Everyone Else
This week, the Senate Finance Committee took up HB 3300, the House’s income tax cut plan, and made significant changes before quickly passing it out of committee. Unlike the House… -
blog March 15, 2021 Trickle-Down Myths Swamp Tax Policy Debates in Mississippi and West Virginia
Recent proposals in both Mississippi and West Virginia seek to pare back, and ultimately eliminate, each state’s income tax while shifting the responsibility of funding services even more onto low- and middle-income taxpayers through increased consumption taxes. The states are moving forward with this tax experiment even though a similar experiment notoriously and immediately sent Kansas into a financial tailspin.
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ITEP Work in Action March 5, 2021 West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy: Governor Justice’s Tax Plan Favors the Wealthy, While Creating Large Holes in the Budget
Governor Justice has finally unveiled his proposal to make sweeping changes to the state’s tax system, including a substantial cut to the state’s personal income tax, while raising a variety… -
ITEP Work in Action March 2, 2020 West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy: House Income Tax Plan Benefits Wealthy and Could Punch Large Holes in State Budget
Once the fund reaches “an amount equal to or exceeding 2.5 times the total net reduction in personal income tax revenue collections that would have been received in that fiscal… -
ITEP Work in Action February 19, 2020 West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy: Senate Tax Plan a Bad Deal for West Virginia
Senate Republicans unveiled their latest proposal to eliminate the business personal property tax this week, passing the proposal out of the Senate Finance Committee. The plan, which builds upon an earlier… -
ITEP Work in Action January 28, 2020 West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy: Who Pays? Rethinking West Virginia’s Tax System
To get a sense of a state’s values, one often need look no further than its tax system. What a state spends its tax dollars on and how it acquires… -
ITEP Work in Action February 27, 2019 Public News Service: Could Fast-Moving Tax-Cut Proposal Blow WV Budget?
House Bill 3137 would create a fund where new money, including out-of-state online sales taxes, would go. Then, each time that fund reached a certain level, it would trigger compounding… -
ITEP Work in Action February 25, 2019 West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy: House Income Tax Cut Plan Mostly Benefits Wealthy and Puts Large Holes in the State Budget (HB 3137)
According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a one-percentage reduction in each personal income tax rate would give a West Virginian with an income between $36,000 and $56,000… -
ITEP Work in Action January 24, 2019 West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy: Fixing the Social Security Tax Bill with a Bottom-Up Tax Cut for Working Families
The fact that so few West Virginians pay income tax on their Social Security benefits should tell us that this is not a middle-class tax cut. As the graph and… -
ITEP Work in Action October 19, 2018 WOWK TV: Tax Issues in West Virginia
WOWK TV – Sean O’Leary, of the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, talks to Mark Curtis about a new report that shows there’s room improve West Virginia’s upside-down tax system.
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ITEP Work in Action October 18, 2018 West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy: West Virginia’s Upside Down Tax System Grows Inequality
State and local tax systems can be effectively used to boost economic opportunity, create broadly shared prosperity and build equitable state economies. But in most states, including West Virginia, tax systems are upside down and are making inequality worse, as a new report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) shows.
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ITEP Work in Action October 17, 2018 West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy: Low-Income West Virginians Pay Far More in Taxes as a Percent of Income Than Wealthiest West Virginians
West Virginia’s tax system is regarded as regressive because the lower one’s income, the higher one’s effective tax rate. While West Virginia has a progressive personal income (meaning the higher one’s income, the higher one’s effective personal income tax rate), it also, like most other states, relies heavily on the more regressive sales and excise taxes to raise revenue. Low-income West Virginians pay up to 6.6 percent of their income on sales and excise taxes, while the wealthiest in the state pay less than one percent of income in state and local sales taxes.
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October 17, 2018 West Virginia: Who Pays? 6th Edition
According to ITEP’s Tax Inequality Index, which measures the impact of each state’s tax system on income inequality, West Virginia has the 37th most unfair state and local tax system in the country. Incomes are more unequal in West Virginia after state and local taxes are collected than before.
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September 26, 2018 Tax Cuts 2.0 – West Virginia
The $2 trillion 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) includes several provisions set to expire at the end of 2025. Now, GOP leaders have introduced a bill informally called… -
ITEP Work in Action September 18, 2018 West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy: Don’t Double Down on Failed Federal Tax Cuts
Extending most of these provision does more of the same and is a huge and alarming waste of resources. According to the Institute on Taxation and Economy Policy, if the individual tax provisions are extended to 2026 and beyond, the richest 1 percent – those making on average $762,000 – in West Virginia would receive an average tax cut of over $20,000. Meanwhile, the poorest 20 percent with an average income of $12,900 will see an average tax increase of $40.
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blog May 22, 2018 Most States Have Raised Gas Taxes in Recent Years
An updated version of this blog was published in April 2019.
State tax policy can be a contentious topic, but in recent years there has been a remarkable level of agreement on one tax in particular: the gasoline tax. Increasingly, state lawmakers are deciding that outdated gas taxes need to be raised and reformed to fund infrastructure projects that are vital to their economies.
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December 16, 2017 How the Final GOP-Trump Tax Bill Would Affect West Virginia Residents’ Federal Taxes
The final tax bill that Republicans in Congress are poised to approve would provide most of its benefits to high-income households and foreign investors while raising taxes on many low-… -
December 6, 2017 How the House and Senate Tax Bills Would Affect West Virginia Residents’ Federal Taxes
The House passed its “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” November 16th and the Senate passed its version December 2nd. Both bills would raise taxes on many low- and middle-income families in every state and provide the wealthiest Americans and foreign investors substantial tax cuts, while adding more than $1.4 trillion to the deficit over ten years. The graph below shows that both bills are skewed to the richest 1 percent of West Virginia residents.
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November 14, 2017 How the Revised Senate Tax Bill Would Affect West Virginia Residents’ Federal Taxes
The Senate tax bill released last week would raise taxes on some families while bestowing immense benefits on wealthy Americans and foreign investors. In West Virginia, 34 percent of the federal tax cuts would go to the richest 5 percent of residents, and 6 percent of households would face a tax increase, once the bill is fully implemented.
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November 6, 2017 How the House Tax Proposal Would Affect West Virginia Residents’ Federal Taxes
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which was introduced on November 2 in the House of Representatives, includes some provisions that raise taxes and some that cut taxes, so the net effect for any particular family’s federal tax bill depends on their situation. Some of the provisions that benefit the middle class — like lower tax rates, an increased standard deduction, and a $300 tax credit for each adult in a household — are designed to expire or become less generous over time. Some of the provisions that benefit the wealthy, such as the reduction and eventual repeal of the estate tax, become more generous over time. The result is that by 2027, the benefits of the House bill become increasingly generous for the richest one percent compared to other income groups.
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October 4, 2017 GOP-Trump Tax Framework Would Provide Richest One Percent in West Virginia with 39.1 Percent of the State’s Tax Cuts
The “tax reform framework” released by the Trump administration and congressional Republican leaders on September 27 would not benefit everyone in West Virginia equally. The richest one percent of West Virginia residents would receive 39.1 percent of the tax cuts within the state under the framework in 2018. These households are projected to have an income of at least $358,800 next year. The framework would provide them an average tax cut of $27,800 in 2018, which would increase their income by an average of 3.5 percent.
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August 17, 2017 In West Virginia 18.3 Percent of Trump’s Proposed Tax Cuts Go to People Making More than $1 Million
A tiny fraction of the West Virginia population (0.1 percent) earns more than $1 million annually. But this elite group would receive 18.3 percent of the tax cuts that go to West Virginia residents under the tax proposals from the Trump administration. A much larger group, 55.9 percent of the state, earns less than $45,000, but would receive just 9.3 percent of the tax cuts.