Taxes are how we pay for the things we do together for our communities, our families, and our economy. Working together through government allows us to accomplish things that are vital to us in West Virginia and that we cannot do alone. Our roads allow us to get to work each day and they allow…
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Yesterday, the Senate Energy Committee passed out HB 3072, which gives West Virginia coal companies a severance tax credit of $3 per ton for coal that is sold to power plants in the state that is an excess of what was sold in 2012. As we noted in an earlier post, the tax credit could…
Last week, Governor Tomblin sent a letter to the House and Senate leadership requesting an adjustment to the FY 2014 budget, which he previously submitted to the legislature at the beginning of the session. Governor Tomblin restores some of the 7.5% budget cuts that were included in the original budget and includes new funding for…
While there has been lots of shouting about the state losing coal jobs, as a whole, the state's natural resource extraction employment picture looks very healthy. All together, employment in the natural gas and coal industry reached almost 37,000 in the third quarter of 2012 - its highest point over the last ten years. While…
This week the House passed the "West Virginia Coal Employment Enhancement Act," which gives local coal producers a $3 per ton tax credit on coal sold to West Virginia power plants and other industries. According to the bill (HB 3072), the tax credit (upon the severance tax) is given only to West Virginia coal that…
With revenue collections running $49 million below estimates, the Senate Finance Committee has introduced a bill to enact immediate spending cuts, with the full Senate expected to vote on the bill today. Lower than expected personal income, sales and severance tax revenues have contributed to the revenue shortfall prompting the budget cuts. SB 664 cuts $28 million…
While the governor's prison reform bill (SB 371) is being debated in the House, they might want to think about removing barriers that make it very difficult for ex-felons gain employment. If one of our goals is help reduce recidivism and help ex-felons enter the workforce, the state will need to end counter-productive practices that…
As the Gazette reported on Wednesday, the WV Department of Highways is pushing a bill to study the feasibility of replacing or supplementing the motor fuel tax with a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax to help address the declining State Road Fund revenue which is partly due to more fuel efficient vehicles. The VMT tax…
On Tuesday the Senate passed SB 187 that would require the Commerce Department to create a jobs impact statement or study on proposed legislation that could impact the state's economy. The price tag from the commerce department is $262,000 per year, enough to add two additional staff to its Research Unit to prepare these statements.…
Last Wednesday, Jared Hunt with the Daily Mail reported that a new study by IHS Global Insight projects that West Virginia will see a huge boom in economic growth from unconventional oil and gas activity over the coming decades. According to an IHS Global Insight study, West Virginia's oil and natural gas industry accounted for…