W.VA. Personal Income Tax Proposal Stalled in Senate

PARKERSBURG, W.Va. (WTAP) -

Last week the West Virginia House and Senate met for a special session to discuss Governor Justice’s proposed personal income tax cut.

The proposal was for a 10% cut to personal income tax rates.

If passed, Governor Justice said it would go back to January 1st 20-22 and put around 254 million dollars back in tax-payers pockets.

Governor Justice’s bill was voted on by the House and Senate in last week’s special session.

After passing in the House, the bill stalled in the Senate

Senate President Craig Blair decided to not vote on the bill.

State Delegate Roger Conley of the 10th district said that the House was united in their stance to pass the bill, but the Senate had a different plan

“Even they do want to reduce the personal income tax. They’re plan was to first reduce other taxes like property taxes and business inventory taxes. And I support that 100 percent as well”

Conley says the issue was an either/or debate. Stating that the Senate’s thoughts were that they could not afford to do the other tax cuts later if they passed this tax cut now.

He said he was disappointed in the Senate’s decision and thinks both are possible.

“I believe that the leadership in both the House and the Senate, and the finance chair and finance committee in both the House and the Senate should have gotten together and made a compromise of some sort that gives the money back where it belongs and that’s to our tax payers.”

The West Virginia Democratic Party says the special session comes at a big cost.

It says Each day of the session cost about $35,000. In their news release, they referred to the six days as “do nothing- special session.”

Conley also criticized the lack of results and high costs. Saying that costing taxpayers $35,000 and leaving with nothing after going down for the specific reason of cutting taxes is inexcusable.

Delegate Bill Anderson of the 8th district says the session is not done. He said, “We’ve recessed now until we’re called by the speaker of the senate president to bring us back to Charleston to try to finish working on the legislation that the governors put on the agenda.”

Delegate Anderson and Conley are hopeful that leaders on both sides can come to an agreement during the recess.

“We are where we are. Hopefully we can reach some kind of agreement some point in the future,” said Anderson.

Conley expressed his opinions on the future.“...I’m very very hopeful that between now and the time that we go back and gavel in at the house and the senate that there’s some sort of a workable plan to give us some relief now.” He added on saying that they need to get together and make this happen. “We need to do what’s in the best interest of West Virginia and that’s to put money back in the pockets that the money come out of.”

We will continue to update as more information on the deliberation comes in.

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