By Phil Kabler, Charleston Gazette-Mail
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia Senate Finance Committee members tried Monday to sweeten a tax break for manufacturers by adding phase-outs of taxes for other businesses and personal property taxes on automobiles, but they struggled to find the money to make up for the revenue lost from those tax cuts.
Committee members discussed increasing consumer sales taxes, and taxes on tobacco and vaping products, but that would raise only about $200 million a year — leaving about $100 million from the proposed tax cuts still uncovered.
“What we’re going to do here is give relief to corporations, and let citizens backfill it with the increase in sales taxes and the cigarette tax,” Sen. Doug Facemire, D-Braxton, said.
Discussion of phasing out the personal property tax on manufacturing equipment, machinery and inventory has been ongoing throughout the session, and long before. But Monday’s attempt to sweeten the proposal, with the additional phase-outs of personal property taxes on automobiles and on nonmanufacturing business inventory, meant the revenue lost from the tax cuts jumped from $100 million a year to about $300 million a year. …
