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…
Tax and Budget
On Wednesday, the Daily Mail reported on the tax incentives offered to Gestamp, the auto parts company that is re-opening the stamping plant in South Charleston. Recently, we looked at the B&O tax incentive, but now with this memo of the agreement between the state and Gestamp, we can take a closer look. The highlights…
West Virginia could lose tens of thousands of jobs over the next five years if Congress enacts the major cuts to Medicaid as proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan and passed by the House of Representatives last month. According to a report from the Economic Policy Institute, the $544 billion in Medicaid cuts in the Ryan Budget over…
The FY 2013 budget passed by the state legislature contained few changes to what the governor proposed, differing by just $4.6 million, a decrease of 0.04 percent. The final budget represents a total increase of approximately 1.6 percent or $200 million over the FY 2012 budget. Read a complete analysis, including areas that received a…
In the debate over the federal government's recent budget deficits, many are arguing that government spending over the last couple of years has been out of control. However, the numbers show that is just not true. This chart looks compares the average annual growth rate of government spending by decade since the 1950s. And as…
Robert Semple writes convincingly that gas prices are not set by Presidents, but are set in a global market, and that they are beyond the control of any one country. As Dean Baker pointed out last week, "Oil prices in the United States depend on the world market, not just supply and demand in the…
Here's an article that appeared in the Gazette about the strain Medicaid is putting on the state's budget. Due to the loss of stimulus funds, the declining federal match rate (which is tied to rising income in the state), and rising health care costs, state officials are scrambling to find a way to keep Medicaid funded.…
On the heels of their 2012 State Business Tax Climate Index is a new report from the Tax Foundation, called Location Matters: A Comparative Analysis of State Tax Costs on Business. What's the difference? While the State Business Tax Climate attempted to measure the "business friendliness" of each state's tax system, the Location Matters report attempts to measure…
This policy memo is a comparison of how West Virginia and Wyoming tax their mineral resources. While there are similarities, there are also many differences. This paper continues the discussion of how states which are reliant on extractive industries can make policy decisions, like the creation of a permanent mineral trust fund, and how those…
There has been a lot of noise lately in the policy community about a new report out of Oklahoma, recommending the elimination of the personal income tax. The report claims that the nine states with no personal income tax have performed better economically than the nine states with the highest personal income taxes. The Institute on Taxation…