Governor acknowledges tax consensus is complicated, but he’s not worried

Despite differences among legislators about the shape of suggested tax cuts, Gov. Jim Justice says he’s hoping for the best in a special session proposed for a little less than two weeks from now.

“At the end of the day, if the decision is the Senate or the House, they don’t want to do this — all I can say is just this: I would say ‘Missed a great opportunity. I’m not going to worry about it. I can absolutely tell you, you can only take the horse to water; you can’t make them drink.’

“Really and truly, their answer then is going to be to the public, not to me. I’m not going to be concerned. I’m going to hate it for our people. This is what we should do. We should move on this very, very quickly.”

Justice has proposed a special session to consider a personal income tax cut of about 10 percent for West Virginians. The full proposal has not been released, but the governor has described his desire to give lower wage earners a break of more than 10 percent while higher earners might receive less.

House Finance Chairman Eric Householder, R-Berkeley, has expressed public support for the income tax cut. The difference is that Householder has said each bracket should receive 10 percent cut across the board.

And there is a significant difference in the state Senate, where many members would support cutting income taxes — but Senate President Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, has said his preference would be to cut personal property taxes first.

Whatever happens might be clear — or not — if the governor calls a special session in line with the next scheduled legislative interim meetings, which are set to begin July 24.

State lawmakers have tended to be wary of open-ended special sessions because the public is sensitive to the daily cost of meeting.

During a briefing today, Justice reiterated that he believes the income tax cut is appropriate policy, particularly since West Virginia has run more than a billion dollars ahead of estimated revenue at the close of the fiscal year.

The governor described some progress in preparing, including work on outlines of the proposed income tax brackets.

“We’re finalizing the tiering to do this. That’ll be done in the next day or so here. It’ll go up to the House and the Senate, and we’ll see what the outcome is when we have a special session.

“But we’re trying to make it fair and equitable. We’ve got a lot of people struggling and having a tough go of it that are really having a tough time especially. But at the same time, we want to remember to drive people who bring job opportunities to our state.”

He assessed: “So, a little complicated — but this one’s not one that I’m going to worry about.”

Robert Karnes

State Senator Robert Karnes, who led a select committee exploring tax changes in 2017, said he agrees an income tax cut should be priority. Karnes did say, though, that he believes such a cut should be even across all tax brackets.

During last year’s regular session, Karnes made near-daily speeches supporting income tax cuts.

“I’m a very strong supporter of lowering all brackets equally because I think you have to serve the bottom of the scale but you also have to deliver something for job creators and economic growth. You want it to be comprehensive across the board. That’s what I support,” Karnes, R-Randolph, said today on MetroNews’ “Talkline.”

Karnes said he believes cutting the income tax would be a more strategic economic move than property tax cuts, although he generally supports both.

“I think there’s broad support for both tax reductions in the caucus,” he said, “and I think it’s probably more mixed as to who thinks which should go first.”

 





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