Proposals Forwarded to Enable West Virginia Business Tax Reform

An academic leader in West Virginia for many years, Robin Capehart previously served as the president of West Liberty University, where he oversaw increased enrollment and an expanded scope of program offerings. Robin Capehart has been extensively involved in legislative issues and, as the former chair of the Governor's Commission on Fair Taxation, he advocated for ending taxes assessed on business capital investments in machinery, inventory, and equipment. 

With such taxes seen as penalizing businesses that want to improve their infrastructure, the West Virginia state Senate is centered on enacting meaningful reform that has been recommended for two decades. One area of discussion among lawmakers is compensating for potential tax revenue loss through a lengthy tax phase-out process and replacing personal property taxes with real property taxes. As described by Senate President Mitch Carmichael, the latter strategy would generate a relatively small impact, as a large part of that tax is “exported” to out-of-state property owners. Another proposal in play for enacting reform while preserving state coffers involves broadening the tax base by eliminating a number of sales tax exemptions.