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…
Tax and Budget
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…
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…