State Legislature wraps up Special Session and Interim meetings with 2% tax cut, and child tax credit

By Matthew Young, RealWV

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Tax cuts, tax credits, budget appropriations, and election proclamations were the talk of the Capital this week, as the State Legislature’s October Interim meetings intersected with the back half of the year’s second Extraordinary Session.

Among numerous other governmental departments, supplemental budget appropriations were provided to PEIA (Public Employees Insurance Agency), in the amount of $87 million; West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine (WVSOM), in the amount of $13.6 million; the Higher Education Policy Commission, in the amount of $22 million; and West Virginia University (WVU), in the amount of $2 million. 

HB 226 – introduced by House Speaker Roger Hanshaw (R-Clay), and Minority Leader Sean Hornbuckle (D-Cabell) – which provides a credit against state personal income tax in the amount of 50% of the federal  child care credit, was adopted by the Senate on Tuesday. It is estimated that the bill will provide eligible families with approximately $225 per month, and “potentially return $4.2 million to  eligible taxpayers.”

What Gov. Jim Justice intended to be a five-percent across-the-board personal income tax cut, was reduced to two-percent. According to Senate Finance Committee Chair Eric Tarr (R-Putnam), the two-percent reduction amounts to approximately $46 million in taxpayer savings. 

Del. Bill Ridenour (R-Jefferson) sponsored House Resolution 203, which sought to compel the State Legislature to “not recognize an illegitimate presidential election.”The resolution was referred to the House Judiciary Committee, after being introduced on Sunday. 

The resolution reads, in part: “Whereas, in the 2024 election cycle there have been, to date, two assassination attempts on the republican nominee for president of the United States while threats of assassination of the Republican nominees for president and vice-president abound. The federal government, under the current Democratic-led regime, has utterly failed,  and continues to fail,  in a suspicious manner, in its absolute duty to adequately protect the republican nominee for president.”

Despite having a total of eight sponsors, the resolution garnered little support, and ultimately died in committee. 

The West Virginia Legislature will reconvene next month. November’s Interim Session is scheduled for Sunday,  Nov.  10, through Tuesday,  Nov. 12, in Charleston.