Category: Taxes
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Compromise Budget Can Eclipse Stalemate
By Steve Haner Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) is offering a compromise on the disputed state budget that gives Virginia’s Democratic legislators most of the spending they were initially demanding, especially for local schools and early childhood education. The Governor is also offering a quick path to a resolution that avoids additional months of budget stalemate…
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Proposed Tax for Leave Pay Guaranteed to Grow
By Derrick Max Sitting on Governor Glenn Youngkin’s desk is a paid family and medical leave bill that would provide eight weeks of paid leave per year for most employees in the Commonwealth. The program would pay employees 80 percent of their weekly salary up to an amount equal to 80 percent of the regional…
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Time for a Fairfax County Salary Freeze
by Arthur Purves Local government compensation is better than private sector. On April 30 the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors will vote on next year’s (FY2025) tax increase. The supervisors have advertised a 7% increase in real estate and car taxes to help pay for $360 million in raises for 38,000 school and county employees.…
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Call the Governor a Spoiled Brat? That’ll Work!
By Steve Haner A senior Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee just called the Governor of Virginia a spoiled brat, which of course became a headline. Is everybody getting the nonsense out of their systems? It is time for the grown-ups to intervene or we will be stuck in a stupid loop until July. The…
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Complex Digital Sales Tax Worthy of Veto
By Steve Haner Pick any member of the General Assembly at random, stop them in the grocery store for a chat, and quiz them about the digital sales tax they approved a week ago Saturday. It will quickly become clear that most had no idea what they were voting for when they approved it.
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Jefferson Institute Lists Bills Youngkin Should Veto
By Derrick Max We have reached sine die of the 2024 General Assembly legislative session. During this session, over a thousand individual bills and a nearly 500-page biennial budget were sent to the Governor. All of this must be reviewed and acted upon by Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) before the April 17 reconvened session. There may be hundreds…
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The Sausage Factory Taxes the Digital Economy
By Steve Haner The Virginia General Assembly has now jumped into the brave new world of taxing the digital economy, but the sales tax provisions it adopted in the budget conference report Saturday are not the same ones that appeared in earlier budget versions. The cabal of tax raisers in the secret final negotiation got…
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Killing the Digital Goose for Its Golden Egg
By Steve Haner The last time the General Assembly made a similar mistake with the Virginia tax code was 20 years ago. It was 2004, and the complaints that business was not “paying its fair share” came from Republicans in the House. They introduced and quickly pushed through a bill that stripped sales tax exemptions…
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RVA Meals Tax: Practically Poetic Injustice
by Jon Baliles As noted, two weeks ago City Council approved the change to city code to make sure the city’s Finance Department only applies meals tax payments to the month for which the invoice is submitted. So, no more of the shady practice that had been applying a portion of say, May’s tax payment,…
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A Veto-Proof Local Tax Hike Nearly Approved
By Steve Haner A bill likely to produce $1.6 billion or more in local sales tax increases is moving through the General Assembly with enough bipartisan votes to block any veto from the Governor, but differences remain between the House of Delegates and Senate versions.
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Democrats Lose Concerns About Taxing the Poor
By Steve Haner A piece of Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin’s tax package has survived after all, but only the part that increases the sales tax base to collect about $1 billion or so more per year from citizens. Democrats who recently complained that sales tax increases were unfair to the poor are suddenly embracing them. …
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Floyd Judge Ponders Order to Return RGGI Tax
By Steve Haner A circuit court judge in Floyd County may soon order Virginia to rejoin the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and to reimpose the related carbon tax on Virginia’s electricity consumers. Judge Kenneth “Mike” Fleenor Jr. ruled earlier this month that a suit seeking reinstatement of RGGI could continue and held a hearing on…
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Analog Tax Policy is Harmful in a Digital World
By Chris Braunlich To many, testifying before a government committee conjures visions of the drama surrounding the McCarthy, Watergate, or Zuckerberg hearings. In Virginia, not so much. Faced with processing more than 2,600 bills in 60 days, the legislature conducts hearings that are often more of a kabuki dance, while backstage choreographers figure out the…
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The Case for an RVA Meals Tax Amnesty
by Jon Baliles Today we are posting a special edition featuring an email from former restaurateur Brad Hemp that he recently sent to City Council about the meals tax fiasco you have probably heard about as a result of seven years of neglect at City Hall. The Mayor raised the meals tax in 2018 to…
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Only Tax Increases Still Pending at Assembly
By Steve Haner Governor Glenn Youngkin’s package of proposed tax changes is now stalled in both the Virginia Senate and the House of Delegates. A House subcommittee spiked it Feb. 5 and then dashed other bills imposing major tax increases on higher income Virginians. A full Senate committee refused his bill on Feb. 6. Of…