By Charles Boothe, Bluefield Daily Telegraph
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — An agreement was reached Wednesday evening in the state Senate on a bill to eventually end the personal income tax, but getting it through the House may be a hill too steep to climb.
The version approved by the Senate by a narrow 18-16 margin mostly mirrored Gov. Jim Justice’s bill, and now the legislation will go to the House, which has so far not indicated widespread support.
During a summit on the issue Monday, Justice made some changes in his bill, including lowering the initial amount of personal income tax reduction from 60 percent to 50 percent, taking out the taxes on alcoholic beverages, lowering the tax on tobacco products and lowering the tax increase on soft drinks from an extra 6.9 percent to 2.4 percent.
The Senate amendment compromise increased the sales tax to 8 percent (Justice had asked for 7.9 percent and the Senate initially raised it to 8.5 percent), agreed to a rebate for lower income residents and agreed to Justice’s coal and gas tax increases…