I received pushback from several constituents who had grown accustomed to the weekly columns from my predecessor in the House of Delegates. Therefore, I have been moved to give more frequent updates, at least while the Legislature is in session. With that, let us discuss the first fast-paced week of the regular session of your state legislature, at least from one delegate’s perspective.
The big news came from the governor and it concerned…well…two memorable things: a “big ole’ bucket” and the elimination of the Personal Income Tax (PIT)!
My take on the elimination of the personal income tax? I think it is crucial to take our state to the next level. The week before Election Day I authored a column in the WV Daily News in which I disclosed my desire to one day be able to repeal the PIT. While I am not naïve enough to believe that column had anything to do with the governor’s decision, you can nevertheless imagine my excitement when, on the day after the election, I heard the governor in a MetroNews interview say that he “…would like to have a discussion about the repeal of the PIT.”
Here is why I was excited to hear him say this: there are currently nine states (Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming) that have no income taxes at all making them very appealing to retirees with decent nest eggs (according to AARP news). I also discovered that New Hampshire is phasing out its interest and dividends tax by 2025.
These states appear to be increasing in population growth as opposed to experiencing declining populations as we have seen here in our beloved state. Subsequently, this increased population actually tends to purchase consumer products in its local community, which leads to an overall increase in the budget revenues of these states due to the collection of their varying degrees of consumer sales taxes.
To be fair, some of these states have higher property and severance taxes, among other things. Nevertheless, their overall jobs and population growth far outpace ours.
While I am not on the committee responsible for crafting this legislation or re-crafting the governor’s proposal it needs to be done very carefully. Each course of action will have to be analyzed, scrutinized, with pros and cons compared and contrasted using weighted values in order to make the right decision going forward.
There are two main points that I certainly like about an eventual repeal of the PIT. First, it would attract wealthy people who have retired and are looking for a state in which to live where their personal earnings/retirement will not be targeted by that state’s government. It is predicted that these retirees will spend more money in the local economies in which they live, thereby increasing state revenue via sales and property taxes. As the population grows so too shall the revenue stream via consumer sales tax revenue over time.
Secondly, it would incentivize skilled individuals to stay in West Virginia instead of relocating to one of the other 10 states that have no income tax, thereby slowing our population loss and attracting more businesses to our state.
Furthermore, if we can maintain a flat budget while identifying wasteful spending we could then legislate ways to use that money to plug gaps in budgets across state agencies where necessary. I am confident that all the aforementioned actions will culminate with an increase in people spending this increased disposable family income locally. This will not only help local businesses but will also increase the state revenue flow as well (via the consumer sales tax).
While I would like to go further faster with this initiative, I am likely to support whichever path is chosen on behalf of all hard-working West Virginia citizens who deserve to keep more of what they earn.
In my view, whatever bill is agreed upon will be far better than what we currently have. Additionally, the state never asked working families how they would backfill the lost family revenue when it was initially taken away via taxation. The fact that it is YOUR MONEY is not lost on me as it seems to be on so many others, others who are always free to write a check to the state of West Virginia anytime they believe the state does not have enough money to fund the basic essentials of government.
On a different note, concerning key bills voted out of committee and are headed for a floor vote soon, I heard two members of the W.Va. Legislature giving an interview to WV Public Broadcasting radio. Both were critical of the current process taken by the GOP super-majority claiming that it is “…being done in a nontransparent way in the darkness of night.”
The public must know that their representatives — from both sides of the aisle — have been present in every committee hearing and during all key votes. At least this has been my personal observation so do not believe everything you hear on our taxpayer-funded airwaves. Listen objectively to all sides of the argument and do your own research as often as possible.
Finally, with regard to the governor’s aforementioned bucket: my research did, in fact, disclose that a five-gallon bucket can hold nearly one million dollars’ worth of $100 bills. Therefore, if we can get this done and eventually altogether eliminate the PIT, I will personally buy the governor’s first 500 empty buckets to get started! – wink
Follow the action of the 85th Legislative Session: www.westvirginialegislature.gov.
Todd Longanacre
Delegate, 42nd District, WV House
Todd.Longanacre@wvhouse.gov
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