West Virginia

Today, the House will vote on HB 2933, the latest version of “tax reform” in the state. HB 2933 would broaden the sales tax base, lower the sales tax rate to 5%, and create a flat 5.1% income tax rate. The bill would drastically increase West Virginia’s already regressive tax system. The vast majority of […]

This week we see West Virginia, Georgia, Minnesota, and Nebraska continue to deliberate regressive tax cut proposals, as the District of Columbia considers cancelling tax cut triggers it put in place in prior years, and lawmakers in Hawaii, Washington, Kansas, and Delaware ponder raising revenues to shore up their budgets. Meanwhile, gas tax debates continue […]

The House and the Senate have advanced two similar tax bills that make substantial changes to the state’s personal income and sales tax, which account for over 75 percent of state general revenue fund collections. Both of these bills will shift the tax load from the wealthy onto working families. It is unclear how either […]

While every state’s tax system is regressive, meaning lower income people pay a higher tax rate than the rich, some states aim to improve tax fairness through a state Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). Federal lawmakers established the in 1975 to bolster the earnings of low-wage workers, especially workers with children and offset some of […]

In the Tax Justice Digest we recap the latest reports, blog posts, and analyses from Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Here’s a rundown of what we’ve been working on lately. State-by-State Analysis of GOP Health Care Plan By now, it’s widely known that the GOP health care plan […]

The House plan to repeal healthcare reform, known as the American Health Care Act (AHCA), provides a tax cut to the wealthiest people while reducing the number of Americans with health coverage by an estimated 24 million, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Because Kentucky has relatively few high earners, we benefit even less from the […]

This week in state tax news saw major changes debated in Hawaii and West Virginia and proposed in North Carolina, a harmful flat tax proposal in Georgia, new ideas for ignoring revenue shortfalls in Mississippi and Nebraska, an unexpected corporate tax proposal from the governor of Louisiana, gas tax bills advance in South Carolina and […]

The House proposal to repeal the federal Affordable Care Act (ACA) and replace it with the American Health Care Act (AHCA), provides only a tiny fraction of very wealthy West Virginians tax cuts while reducing the number of Americans with health coverage by an estimated 24 million. The two big tax cuts included in the […]

State tax debates have been very active this week. Efforts to eliminate the income tax continue in West Virginia. Policymakers in many states are responding to revenue shortfalls in very different ways: some in Iowa, Mississippi, and Nebraska seek to dig the hole even deeper with tax cuts, while the Missouri House’s response has been […]

In the Tax Justice Digest we recap the latest reports, blog posts, and analyses from Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Here’s a rundown of what we’ve been working on lately.  New Study Explores the 35 Percent Corporate Tax Myth A comprehensive, eight-year study of profitable Fortune 500 corporations […]

This week brings more news of states considering reforms to their consumption taxes, on everything from gasoline in South Carolina and Tennessee, to marijuana in Pennsylvania, to groceries in Idaho and Utah, and to practically everything in West Virginia. Meanwhile, the fiscal fallout of Kansas’s failed ‘tax experiment’ has new consequences as the state’s Supreme […]

Tax cuts have been proposed in many states already this year, but amid so much uncertainty, it remains to be seen how successful those efforts will be. This week saw one dangerous, largely regressive tax cut proposal move in Georgia, new budget proposals in Louisiana and New Jersey, a new plan to close West Virginia‘s […]

Last Friday, the Senate Select Committee on Tax Reform explored the idea of amending SB 335 to include a version of a refundable state Earned Income Tax Credit. As noted previously, SB 335 would replace the personal and corporate income tax, along with the sales and use tax, with a general consumption tax of 8 […]

A recently introduced Senate Bill in West Virginia (SB 335) would ultimately eliminate the state’s personal and corporate income taxes, do away with the sales and use tax, and reduce the state’s severance tax. Under the plan, the revenue lost from this assortment of diverse taxes would be replaced by an 8 percent broad-based general […]

In the Tax Justice Digest we recap the latest reports, blog posts, and analyses from Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Here’s a rundown of what we’ve been working on lately.  Regressive and Loophole-Ridden: Issues with the House GOP Border Adjustment Tax Proposal In recent weeks, the Republican congressional […]

This week saw a nearly successful attempt to right the fiscal ship in Kansas; regressive tax proposals introduced in WestVirginia, Georgia, and Missouri; ongoing gas tax fights in Indiana, South Carolina, and Tennessee; and further tax and budget wrangling in Illinois, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and beyond. — Meg Wiehe, ITEP State Policy Director, @megwiehe Both […]

Governor Jim Justice has not introduced any tax measures yet, but in his State of the State Address and his executive budget  there are plans to enact several tax increases to close the Fiscal Year 2018 budget gap of $500 million and address the state’s declining road fund that pays for highway construction, maintenance, and road […]

Unfazed by a $600 million looming budget deficit, plans by some lawmakers to reduce or eliminate West Virginia’s state income tax  — which would mostly benefit the wealthiest residents — and replace it with a sales tax hike are unlikely to produce the economic growth supporter’s claim.  Instead it would dramatically shift tax responsibilities from […]

Senate leadership introduced SB 335 which would abolish the personal income tax and sales and use tax, phase out the corporate income tax, lower the severance tax, and replace these taxes with an 8 percent broad-based general consumption or sales tax. While it is unclear whether this tax shift would be revenue neutral, it would dramatically […]

Eliminating the income tax is a strategy that has been tried over and over in other states with little or nothing to show, other than revenue erosion that brings cuts in support for schools, transportation and other true building blocks of broad prosperity. A better course for West Virginia would be to reform the tax […]

Scale back income tax exemptions – Every taxpayer regardless of income receives a $2,000 exemption for each dependent. Phase it out between $150,000-$200,000, and eliminate it for those over $200,000, and it would increase revenue by an estimated $10 million. PowerPoint presentation available here

This is the fourth installment of our six-part series on 2017 state tax trends. The introduction to this series is available here.   State lawmakers often find themselves looking for ways to raise revenue to fund vital public services, fill budget gaps, or pay for the elimination or weakening of progressive taxes. Lately, that search has […]

This week we are following a number of significant proposals being debated or introduced including reinstating the income tax in Alaska and eliminating the tax in West Virginia, establishing a regressive tax-cut trigger in Nebraska, restructuring the Illinois sales tax, moving New Mexico to a flat income tax and broader gross receipts tax, and updating […]