Con't from previous post: Another way to put these corporate tax cuts in perspective is by comparing the growth in corporate taxes with the growth in sales and personal income taxes over the last two decades. While personal and sales and use taxes have more than doubled from FY1990 to FY2012, the corporate net income and business franchise tax has…
Tax and Budget
On Monday, the Governor announced that some state agencies will have to reduce their budgets by 7.5 percent next year to make way for a projected budget gap in the FY 2013-14 budget that begins on July 1, 2013. Left untouched by the budget cuts are the school-aid formula, corrections programs, the legislative and judicial…
Last week, the U.S. Senate passed legislation extending the Bush tax cuts for households with incomes below $250,000 ($200,000 for individuals). While the legislation won't take effect without action from the U.S. House of Representatives, some folks are expressing concern that by allowing the top tax rate cut to expire many small business would be…
If you have read our blog before, by now you should be familiar with the variety of "tax climate" or "business friendly" indexes put out by groups like the Tax Foundation. And you should also know that these indexes have repeatedly failed to show any connectionbetween their scores and state economic performance. Peter Fisher at…
Last year, legislation was introduced in Congress to apply the Social Security payroll tax to earnings above $250,000, to help alleviate Social Security's long term budget shortfall. Currently, wages over a certain yearly total ($110,100 this year) are exempted from Social Security payroll taxes. Raising or eliminating this cap could help strengthen Social Security's finances, but for…
The clarion call for tax reform continues to sound in West Virginia, as the business community continues to rail against the state's business personal property tax, regardless of a lack of evidence. So what would tax reform look like in West Virginia? First, let's go ahead an eliminate the business personal property tax. We know that the business personal property…
The specter of job killing property taxes in West Virginia reared its head again this week, with the cry for tax reform coming this time from outgoing Bayer CEO Greg Babe, as he presented to Charleston Area Alliance's 2012 Annual Celebration, reported by the Daily Mail. The Daily Mail rehashed Mr. Babe's argument, debunked once before here, in an editorial this morning.…
As Sean pointed out in a recent Charleston Gazette commentary, the decline in corporate net income tax and business franchise tax collections is threatening programs such as Medicaid. With this in mind, let's take a historical look at the growth these two taxes. As the chart below shows, revenue from the CNIT/BFT is expected to…
George Hohmann does a great job breaking down the Gestamp deal in his Sunday column. (see here and here for background info). Hohmann makes the following observations: * It can be argued that without incentives, Gestamp would not be coming to South Charleston and the stamping plant would remain idle. * The $25 million in loans…
The Charleston Gazette -- A pair of corporate tax cuts touted as necessary to improve West Virginia's business climate have turned out to be little more than a drain on public investment and a threat to the state's economic future. But instead of ending the tax giveaway, policymakers are looking to the state's most vulnerable…