Category: Taxes
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Data Centers Will Pay Same Tax on Solar Power as on Coal
by Steve Haner The new energy tax being imposed on Virginia’s data center industry effective July 1, assuming the new state budget conference report passes next week, is totally ecumenical. The same tax is imposed on electrons from a solar panel or wind turbine as is imposed on electrons from coal. A data center that…
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Surf’s Up! And So’s Exposure to Virginia Beach Taxpayers
The biggest wave generated by the city’s Atlantic Park project is debt. The promised tax revenues aren’t sufficient yet to support it. by James C. Sherlock From an article by Stacy Parker in The Virginian-Pilot this morning: To build two parking garages and improve streets in Atlantic Park, a public entity borrowed $53 million and…
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Virginia on the Brink
by Kerry Dougherty With Virginia’s top two Democrat females mud wrestling in Richmond, it’s time to think about what a Virginia state government shutdown might look like. With 13 days to get a budget, the unthinkable may actually happen: Virginia government may shut down because the Democrats fundamentally don’t like each other. None of us…
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Rebating Spanberger’s RGGI Tax Won’t Erase RGGI’s Cost Impact
by Steve Haner Virginia’s return to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) will produce such an explosion of new tax revenue and will cause such major increases in consumer electricity costs, a political feeding frenzy is beginning to erupt over the money. A legislative study panel heavily controlled by Democrats who voted for Virginia’s return to RGGI…
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Virginia’s Deceptive Gas Tax Continues to Confuse, Rises Again
By Steve Haner, Virginia’s gasoline taxes rise again on July 1, a continuing legacy of former Governor Ralph Northam’s most taxing term. He signed the 2020 bill calling for annual gas tax adjustments for inflation, so the combined taxes will rise from 41.6 cents per gallon to 42.4 cents per gallon. It was a bipartisan…
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RGGI Will Cost Typical Dominion Customer $13 More Per Month
By Steve Haner, Dominion Energy Virginia is proposing to delay until March 2027 to bill its customers for the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) carbon allowances it must buy starting July 1. When the cost hits, however, it could be $13 a month or $156 per year for a typical residential customer. The final decision…
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With Tax Now $35 Per Ton, Are RGGI Rebates on the Way?
by Steve Haner The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) held its second 2026 carbon allowance auction last week and the bidding cleared at $35 per ton, the group announced Friday. That price was a 40 percent increase over the $25 per ton set for the carbon tax just three months earlier and was 78 percent higher…
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The Source of All Evil: Data Centers!
Jefferson Forum’s President Derrick Max puts out a Sunday morning summary that only some of you probably see, and I cannot really link to it for you. But today’s email had a useful and entertaining riff on the ongoing efforts to demonize Virginia’s data center industry, a clearly coordinated hit job from the left and…
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With Virginia Back In, RGGI Futures Price Tops $41 Per Ton
by Steve Haner Virginia’s impending return to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) has driven up the price for carbon credits in the multistate cap-and-trade system’s secondary market. The futures price exceeded $41 per ton this morning, far above the roughly $25 per ton that utilities had to pay in the March 2026 auction. It reflects…
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A Consequential Fight
by James C. Sherlock Michael Martz of the Richmond Times-Dispatch published an excellent report April 15 detailing the three-way fight among Governor Abigail Spanberger and various Democrats in the Virginia Senate and House of Delegates over the budget. The Governor proposed “hundreds of changes” to the competing budget bills proposed by each chamber. Long story…
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Spanberger Pushing for July Return to RGGI and Its Carbon Tax
by Steve Haner The Abigail Spanberger Administration has told an energy industry publication that it plans to rejoin the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative by July, in time to participate in the September and December 2026 carbon dioxide allowance auctions. Because of the accelerated timetable, the Department of Environmental Quality will not publish a draft regulation…
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Data Centers – Lucy and the Football
by Chris Saxman Virginia’s proposed move to end its data center sales and use tax (SUT) exemption eight years early is less about policy and more about predictability —and what happens as a result. Two simple analogies bring this into focus: the neighborhood Happy Hour and the timeless scene of Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown. Happy Hour Imagine a…
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March RGGI Carbon Tax Jumped 26% in One Year
by Steve Haner The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) held its first carbon allowance auction of 2026 Wednesday and the price came in at just under $25 per ton of emissions, 26% higher than a year ago. There should be no doubt now about predictions that imposing this carbon tax on Virginia electricity plants will…
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The $4 to $5 Billion in Tax Hikes the Assembly is Approving
by Steve Haner The tax increase proposals still pending at the 2026 General Assembly will extract another $4 to $5 billion annually from Virginians if enacted, shared between the state and the local governments. The Democrats in political control have taken a bow for producing competing budget proposals that are not dependent on major…