By Charles Boothe, Bluefield Daily Telegraph
BLUEFIELD, W.Va. — Gov. Jim Justice’s plan to gradually end the personal income tax in the state is running into some opposition, especially concerning the proposed hikes in sales taxes to make up for the revenue loss.
Justice wants to amend state Code and cut personal income 60 percent starting Jan. 1, 2022, with the goal of eventually ending it all together.
But that would mean a tax revenue loss of just over $1 billion a year to the state. To compensate for the loss, Justice has proposed to raise about $900 million to make up most of the difference by increasing the consumer sales tax from 6 percent to 7.9 percent along with targeting extra taxes on soft drinks, beer, tobacco products, among goods and services.
The Senate version cuts some of those specific taxes but raises the state sales tax to 8.5 percent and imposes a state hotel-motel tax of 4.3 percent, which, combined with the local hotel-motel tax and a 1 percent Home Rule sales tax in cities, would mean the tax could jump to has high as 19.8 percent…
