Does West Virginia's business personal property tax keep companies from investing in the state? Do states with low business taxes have stronger economic growth? Evidence suggests that taxes actually may have a minor impact on a state's economic development. Instead, other factors like a highly trained workforce are more important. Read
Tax and Budget
The issue of retiree health care for public employees, or Other Post Employment Benefits (OPEB), is likely to top the policy agenda for the 2011 West Virginia Legislative Session. By placing the OPEB issue in context, this paper aims to demonstrate that the liability is not a crisis, but rather a manageable concern. Read
December General Revenue collections exceeded estimates by $38.2 million dollars. This was the 8th consecutive month where actual collections exceeded estimated collections. At the midpoint of FY 2011, West Virginia currently sits on a cash surplus of nearly $160 million dollars. The graph below shows monthly estimated and actual revenue collections since the beginning of…
The compromise tax plan agreed to by President Obama and congressional Republicans would double the tax cut for the top one percent of earners in West Virginia from the tax cut the President proposed, while offering a smaller tax cut to the poorest West Virginians, and almost no change for the middle class. The compromise…
West Virginia's combined cash flow for the first four months of FY 2011 resulted in $95.6 million dollars in surplus revenue, a significant reversal of fortunes from the same start in FY 2010. Figure 1 below shows the cumulative general revenue cash flow from the beginning of the fiscal year starting in July through the…
An Issue Brief identifying the facts behind the federal deficit. Both spending and revenues have contributed to the deficit. Growth in federal spending is projected to slow, and the economy is expected to outgrow the current deficit. The brief identifies healthcare costs rather than spending as the primary source of the long-term deficit problem.…
As the election grows near, if there is a a dominant message to be heard from the candidates on the national level, it's that federal spending has been out of control and needs to be drastically cut. Advertisements often cite the financial bailouts, the stimulus plan, and the new health care law as examples of…
In 2010, the West Virginia House of Delegates and the WV Tax Modernization Working Group endorsed allowing counties to exempt business personal property from property tax rolls. A recent analysis by the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy shows that such an exemption would reduce much-needed funding of our education system, put a financial…
Congresswomen Capito argued in the Gazette on "Labor Day" (of all days...) to renew Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy. In the op-ed, Capito resorted to presenting voters with a "false choice" about the Bush tax cuts and by presenting the facts in a way that would make Orwell blush. Here's Capito: "Contrary to popular belief, the…
There is bright news coming from the West Virginia State Budget Office August cash flow report. General Revenues collected in August are ahead of schedule, most likely due to increased sales in back-to-school purchases and improvements in business activity due to stimulus spending. General Revenue collections were up $31 million dollars at the end of…