Category: Taxes
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Democrat Bunkum about Youngkin
Arthur G. Purves In this fall’s Virginia gubernatorial campaign, Virginia Democrats are citing “a new independent study” to attack Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin, when Democrat policies themselves merit scrutiny. The Virginia Democrats web page does not cite the source of the Youngkin study but does link to the the website of the Virginia Education…
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Of Course Tax Hikes Grew the State Surpluses
by Steve Haner At Tuesday night’s debate Democratic gubernatorial nominee Terry McAuliffe dismissed the 2021 $2.6 billion general fund revenue surplus as entirely due to extra federal COVID relief funds, which is absurd on its face. By definition, every dollar is general fund state tax revenue. It came from some form of state tax. Why…
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More Ignored News: Bag Tax Coming to Richmond
by Steve Haner The plastic bag tax recently approved in Roanoke and several Northern Virginia localities, created by the General Assembly in 2020 as a local option, is also coming to the City of Richmond. It was promised in the same September 13 Richmond City Council “climate crisis” resolution that implied a future closure of…
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Conference Explores VA Rush to Copy CA Energy
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by Steve Haner Californians were again this week under an electricity “flex alert,” a conservation order required because of its reliance on unreliable solar and wind energy. They often cannot keep up with demand on the hotter days. Is this Virginia’s future? The government is telling Californians: Set your thermostat at 78° or higher Avoid…
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Democratic Lawmakers Threaten Spending Bill Over SALT Cap Repeal
Tax that man behind the tree. As Congress works to pass a $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package a group of “moderate” Democrats are threatening to block the spending bill unless the State and Local Tax (SALT) caps are repealed. Prior to Donald Trump’s 2017 tax law, state and local taxes were fully deductible on federal income…
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Youngkin Promises to Reverse Northam Tax Hikes
by Steve Haner Republican gubernatorial nominee Glenn Youngkin is proposing to reduce Virginians’ taxes in much the same way Governor Ralph Northam raised them: Use several individual proposals, some not all that large, which accumulate into a significant change. As Northam ends his term, his attitude seems to be, what tax increases? He claims the…
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Solar Industry Poll Favors (Surprise) Solar Industry
by Steve Haner You will never find a better example of blatant question bias in a poll: “Do you agree or disagree that solar farms are better than other types of development because they do not pollute the environment and help lower the cost of electricity for homes and businesses?” They “do not pollute” and…
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Loudoun’s Golden Goose Lays Fewer Eggs
by James A. Bacon Data centers may not support a lot of jobs, but they sure do pump up the tax base. In Loudoun County, home to the world’s largest cluster of server farms, the facilities were expected to support $11.2 billion in taxable assets. When the actual number came in $1.1 billion shy of…
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DMV Still Hiding Full Gas Tax Amounts
by Steve Haner The Virginia Division of Motor Vehicles is now hiding only 22% of the state’s existing motor fuels tax with misleading website data, not the 26% it was hiding when I wrote about this last year. In the chart you first find searching DMV on motor fuel tax rates, set out below, there…
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RGGI Tax Appears on Dominion Bills in September
by Steve Haner In a polite but clear “the emperor has no clothes” message, a member of the State Corporation Commission has questioned the need to impose a carbon tax to cut carbon emissions from electric generation by 30%, when the General Assembly has passed another law requiring a 100% reduction with no tax. Judge…
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If No Better Ideas Emerge, Go With These
By Steve Haner First published Tuesday by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. In 1972, a Virginia taxpayer needed a taxable income of $12,000 before the state’s maximum income tax rate kicked in. Adjusted for inflation, that threshold should be $78,000 today. There has been one adjustment since, to $17,000 in income before the…
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How Not to Treat a Conservation Easement
The Commonwealth needs to tighten up its system for granting and overseeing conservation easements, the Virginia Office of the State Inspector General (OSIG) has found. One of three conservation-easement properties visited by OSIG auditors did not meet Conservation Value Review Criteria adopted to provide for quality conservation value. The inspectors saw “trash, old tires, scrap…
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The Middle Class’s Death by a Thousand Cuts
by James A. Bacon Two items in the news today serve as a reminder of how the rules enacted by the American governing class benefit the rich, aid the poor, and tighten the screw on the middle class. The new tax dodge. First, The Wall Street Journal describes the increasingly widespread tactic in which the…
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Time to Cut Taxes
by Stephen D. Haner If Virginia ended the fiscal year June 30 with a general fund cash surplus of $2 billion, almost 10 percent of its annual budget, that means taxes are too high. Period. The debate for the 2021 political season should be how to cut taxes, and how much. The $2 billion projection…
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Northam’s Hidden 40% Gasoline Tax Hike
Did you know that last year Virginia’s tax on gasoline increased 5 cents per gallon, on July 1, 2020, from 24.4 cents to 29.4 cents? Did you know that this year Virginia’s tax on gasoline is increasing again, by another 5 cents per gallon on July 1, 2021, to 34.4 cents? That is a 40%…