Category: Taxes
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Moody’s: Virginia Local Government Credit Quality Healthy despite High Debt Burdens
Moody’s, the bond-rating firm, has disseminated a new report on the credit quality of Virginia local governments — answering many of the questions we have been posing on this blog. The good news is that Moody’s rates Virginia’s business climate highly and says that local governments have “wide latitude” to protect their bond ratings by…
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Virginia is for Lovers of Tax Cuts
by John Sims After years of sluggish post-recession growth, our state’s recent history shows that Virginia is for lovers of pro-growth policies—at the foundation of which is the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Efforts to pursue these pro-growth policies have led to a red-hot economy. According to the latest report from the Bureau of Labor…
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A New Tax Policy Principle: Harm Reduction
Despite a long tradition of taxing traditional tobacco products, Virginia should not now tax the alternative products from the same industry based on nicotine-laced heated liquids because they serve the high social purpose of harm reduction, legislators were told Tuesday. Carrie L. Wade of the R Street Institute, who never quite stated who had paid…
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Virginia Gothic
by Bill Tracy Following up on Steve Haner’s discussion of Virginia’s handling of the new federal tax laws, I decided to do a “hypothetical” sample calculation. “Hypothetical” is in quotes, because this example is somewhat similar to my own household, where we are grandparents in retirement. In this simplified example, the annual income is assumed…
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Taxes, Innovation and Virginia’s Lost Mojo
In 1940 In 1940, technological innovation in the United States was concentrated overwhelmingly in the Great Lakes states, the Northeast, and California. The powerful economic force known as agglomeration — in which geographic proximity boosts the productivity of inventors and researchers — acted to perpetuate those states’ lead. Yet over the following six decades, the…
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Virginia Should Double Its Standard Deduction
In 1987, as part of its response to the conformity issues created by President Reagan’s tax cut, the Virginia General Assembly increased the standard deduction available to Virginia taxpayers to $3,000 for an individual and $5,000 for a couple. At some point since the joint filing amount went up to $6,000 to eliminate any marriage…
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Has NoVa Finally Woken Up?
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUPWeuVHDcc?rel=0&w=560&h=315]VA-10. State Senator Jennifer Wexton (D) hopes to unseat Congresswoman Barbara Comstock (R) in Virginia’s 10th Congressional District. A typically gerrymandered Virginia district, the 10th stretches from inside the Capital Beltway to well west of Winchester. As a resident of the 10th I watch the elections in that district closely. This one is shaping…
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Lock in Tax Cuts, Stimulate Virginia Small Business
by Gary Desilets Ahead of the November midterms, Republicans are preparing to make President Trump’s tax relief permanent. House Republicans have introduced legislation to lock in tax cuts beyond 2025, when they are currently set to expire. The legislation also would maintain the standard deduction, which increased to $12,000 per individual and $24,000 for a married couple,…
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Virginia State/Local Taxes Per Capita: $4,457
State and local tax collections per capita in Virginia amounted to $4,457 in fiscal 2015, ranking the Old Dominion as the 23rd highest taxed state in the country, according to the Tax Foundation. We are the most heavily taxed state in the Southeast. If you believe state/local government should spend and tax more, this data…
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VA CPAs Say Conform, Hold Tax Funds for Later
The Virginia Society of Certified Public Accountants (VSCPA) Monday called on the 2019 Virginia General Assembly to conform Virginia tax with recent federal changes, to track and sequester the hundreds of millions of dollars in higher taxes thus generated and to hold those funds for a future tax reform effort. Nobody knows these issues better…
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Dump the Nonsense in Coming Conformity Debate
Mr. Chairman, I seek permission to revise and extend my remarks – in this case a guest column in today’s Washington Post on the topic of income tax conformity. For about a month now the inbox has been filling up with nonsense (and some wisdom) from across the political spectrum over the causes, impact and…
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Northam To Ask Again To Spend Carbon Fees
Virginia Secretary of Natural Resources Matthew Strickler told a legislative commission today the Governor will again ask the General Assembly to keep and spend the proceeds of a new electricity carbon tax, rather than find a way to return it to ratepayers. Strickler pointed to Senate Bill 696 and its companion House Bill 1273, defeated…
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Steps Virginia Must Take to Tax Internet Sales
Conformity to recent federal income tax changes is not the only challenge (or opportunity, depending on your point of view) facing the 2019 Virginia General Assembly. It may also be asked to amend Virginia’s sales and use tax rules, so the tax can be demanded from out-of-state sellers. A recent review from the Tax Foundation…
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Micron Incentives Were Behind Layne Warnings
One mystery solved: Secretary of Finance Aubrey Layne was probably talking about Micron Technology in Manassas on August 17 when he warned the General Assembly about some very expensive economic development incentive package not yet announced or accounted for in the Commonwealth’s budget. Layne repeated that warning during a discussion of tax policy yesterday with…
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The Logic Behind Northam’s Plan for Spending the Tax-Reform Windfall
The starting point for understanding the Northam administration’s logic behind divvying up the tax windfall from federal income tax reform is the conviction that Virginia cannot count on the personal and corporate tax cuts lasting more than a few years. Democrats may regain power in Washington, D.C., and reverse the tax cuts, or at the…