Warner Tax-Cut Proposals Won’t Benefit Va.’s Poor, Elderly

From the Washington Post of all places:

More than a half-million poor and elderly Virginians would receive no benefit from Gov. Mark R. Warner’s proposed changes to the state’s income tax, leaving them especially vulnerable to the governor’s one-cent increase in the state’s sales tax.

Warner (D) is selling his plan to raise $1 billion over the next two years as a tax cut for at least 65 percent of Virginians. He says that nearly everyone would benefit from proposals to reduce taxes on the first $20,000 of income.

But by Warner’s own count, 630,000 households pay no income taxes, either because their incomes are less than about $20,000 a year or they receive old-age breaks that add up to more than they make. Those people would pay more every day if the General Assembly enacts Warner’s plan to raise the sales tax from 4.5 percent to 5.5 percent this winter.

That reality threatens to undermine support for the plan among groups that Warner needs to count on to win passage in the Republican-led legislature: liberal think tanks and interest groups that advocate for the poorest Virginians.