Category: Taxes
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Fuel Costs Explode on Dominion Bills in July
by Steve Haner Are you enjoying paying more for gasoline? Have you noticed how that works its way through and inflates the price of just about everything else you buy? The other shoe drops in July when Dominion Energy Virginia increases its prices to reflect the rising cost of fuel. It will also spread more…
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Reject the Cut, Help the Students
by Chris Braunlich Cruise over to the website of Cristo Rey Richmond High School, and you’ll learn that all of the students there are from low-income families. You’ll also read about scores of national and local partnerships, providing hundreds of work-study opportunities to teach students the art and science of working in an office environment…
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You Just Paid More RGGI Tax, Virginians
by Steve Haner Last week Virginia collected another $76 million in carbon tax dollars through the ongoing Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative allowance auction. That was the sixth such sale since Virginia joined RGGI, and the state’s total tax take is now $378 million in 18 months. Do not for one minute allow yourself to be…
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School Choice Tax Credits Reduced in New Budget
by Steve Haner The famous phrase about no one’s life, liberty or property being safe while the legislature sits probably arose after somebody got burned by an out-of-control conference committee. It just happened again to Virginia’s private schools, who had a popular scholarship tax credit program chopped Wednesday. The Education Improvement Scholarship Tax Credit (EISTC)…
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Sales Tax On Groceries With Us Through Christmas
by Steve Haner Everybody eats. With all the money sloshing around the Virginia treasury for the General Assembly to play with, it is hard to see the logic in continuing the state sales tax on groceries an additional six months, delaying that particular tax cut until January 1. The inflation on everything at the grocery…
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Details on Real Estate Assessments and the Property Tax
by Dick Hall-Sizemore I am following up on James Sherlock’s article on local property taxes. In Article X, sections 1 and 2, the state constitution requires that all property be taxed at fair market value. There are exceptions, but those are not relevant to this discussion. So, there you have it. Unless the constitution is…
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Home Price Volatility and Virginia Property Taxes
by James C. Sherlock Housing prices have more than doubled since 2012, reflecting shortages of supply and the resulting speculation. The increasing slope of those curves above is not comforting. Prices have soared over 20% in a year. Mortgage rates are up. What could possibly happen next? Most can figure that out. But this article is…
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Progress: Standard Deduction Up 166% since 2018
by Steve Haner First published today by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. Do not be surprised if, by the time the next Virginia General Assembly elections roll around, the Democrats who are now complaining about the level of tax relief in the pending budget compromise switch positions, and campaign as champions of the…
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Talking Out of Both Sides of Their Mouths
by Dick Hall-Sizemore While perusing today’s edition of the Roanoke Times, I ran across an article that astounded me. It concerned a meeting recently in Southwest Virginia about the Coalfields Expressway. I remembered hearing about this proposed highway many, many years ago and thought that it had been dismissed as a pipe dream. It turns…
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Virginia Slides Lower in ALEC Economic Rankings
by Steve Haner First published earlier today by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. As measured by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), Virginia’s economic outlook has continued its precipitous drop and now barely ranks in the top half among the American states, 24th out of 50. A decade ago it was in the top five,…
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The Monetary Rape of Middle-Class Retirees
by James A. Bacon This past year saw one of the greatest redistributions of wealth in U.S. history. People are upset by the 8.5% increase in inflation, but they’re not nearly as upset as they should be. Wage earners, especially lower-income wage earners, have every right to be irate. Their hourly pay has increased, but…
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A Bag Of Oranges and Gas Tax Posturing
by Steve Haner The bag of mandarin oranges that was $4.99 last week was $5.99 this morning. Fruit trees aren’t getting raises – that is the impact of fuel prices, the cost to ship them to Virginia. As I’m fuming and pushing my cart to the next inflated item, the phone pings to announce an…
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Virginia Budget Deal Stalled as Democrats Demand $3B in Increased Spending
by Shaun Kenney Just to illustrate how fanatically out of touch Senate Democrats are as they frantically try to spend $3 billion on more government, check out State Senator Scott Surovell (D-Fairfax) on Twitter as he blasts Governor Glenn Youngkin’s proposal for gasoline tax relief: Remember — we are sitting on a $3bn surplus fueled…
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Tell Me Again. Why Are Virginia Taxes So Bad?
by Dick Hall-Sizemore I have taxes on my mind. It is sort of hard not to be thinking a lot about taxes these days. I just finished compiling my tax returns (yes, I realize that I am a procrastinator). The Governor is telling me that the state taxes me too much and he wants to…
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Richmond’s Reaganesque Time for Choosing
by Chris Braunlich Richmond, like Washington, has always been a place where an “insider’s game” is played – not in a pejorative sense, but simply as the way things are done. Relationships are paramount, people speak in the arcane language of lawmaking, agendas are confusing for outsiders, and the activities of a subcommittee for an…