Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy

West Virginia

ITEP Work in Action  

West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy: Big Beautiful Bill’s Tax Cuts Overwhelmingly Favor the Wealthiest in West Virginia Even Before Accounting for Tariffs and Benefit Cuts

May 31, 2025 • By ITEP Staff

Earlier this month the U.S. House of Representatives passed a major new tax and spending bill that not only represents the largest cuts to Medicaid and SNAP in history, taking away SNAP and Medicaid benefits from millions of recipients including tens of thousands in West Virginia, but also includes tax provisions that would overwhelmingly favor the richest taxpayers in […]

blog  

Measures on the November Ballot Could Improve or Worsen State Tax Codes

October 26, 2022 • By Jon Whiten

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 for public services, or take states in the opposite direction, making tax systems less fair and draining state coffers of dollars needed to maintain critical […]

ITEP Work in Action  

West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy: House Personal Income Tax Cut Plan Largely Benefits Wealthy, Not Fiscally Sustainable

February 15, 2022 • By ITEP Staff

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 floor with no discussion or questions asked. Like previous attempts to eliminate the state’s income tax, HB 4007 would lead to major revenue losses for the […]

ITEP Work in Action  

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

March 31, 2021 • By ITEP Staff

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 plan, which phased out the income tax over time with no revenue offsets, the Senate’s plan is more similar to the governor’s proposal, making a […]

blog  

Trickle-Down Myths Swamp Tax Policy Debates in Mississippi and West Virginia

March 15, 2021 • By Aidan Davis

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.

ITEP Work in Action  

West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy: Governor Justice’s Tax Plan Favors the Wealthy, While Creating Large Holes in the Budget

March 5, 2021 • By ITEP Staff

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 of sales and other taxes. The changes would be a dramatic shift in who pays state taxes in West Virginia, shifting the responsibility onto working […]

ITEP Work in Action  

West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy: House Income Tax Plan Benefits Wealthy and Could Punch Large Holes in State Budget

March 2, 2020 • By ITEP Staff

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 year if the income tax rates for that fiscal year had been reduced by 0.25 percent” it triggers a reduction in the state’s personal income […]

ITEP Work in Action  

West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy: Senate Tax Plan a Bad Deal for West Virginia

February 19, 2020 • By ITEP Staff

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 proposal to eliminate the property tax on manufacturing equipment, machinery, and inventory, would blow a nearly $100 million hole in the state budget, introduce inconsistency in […]

ITEP Work in Action  

West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy: Who Pays? Rethinking West Virginia’s Tax System

January 28, 2020 • By ITEP Staff

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 those tax dollars typically reveals a lot about the priorities of its people—what they care about and what they stand for. In theory, it’s a […]