Finance Subcommittee #3 carried over to 2027 a sweeping set of tax reform bills — including two major Delegate Watts packages on income tax restructuring and sales tax modernization, a grocery tax elimination bill, and a statewide transportation funding bill — while voting 5-2 to table Delegate McNamara's standalone standard deduction bill after Delegate Watts argued the provision was already covered in the budget and conformity bills.
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Delegate McNamara argued the committee must act on HB 12 to prevent the married couple standard deduction from dropping from $17,500 to $6,000, calling it a $661 tax increase on affected filers. Delegate Watts countered that the provision was already in the budget bill (HB 29), the conformity bill, and the action already taken on HB 29, and that reporting HB 12 would constitute a 'finger' pointed at Appropriations after they had already taken the necessary steps; her motion to table passed 5 to 2.
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“There is no single more regressive tax than a grocery tax. It's something people have to have. Everybody has to have. Rich people, poor people, everybody in between has to buy groceries. How do we pay for it? Big question. It's $330 million. $330 million is a lot of money. I'll tell you what else is a lot of money. It's the amount our budget has grown over our original Forecast, which is $1.2 billion, which is four times the size of the grocery tax. And that's what we grew just in the first six months of this fiscal year. That's not one time money. That is ongoing money.”
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Sign in to subscribeCall this meeting of Subcommittee three to order. I apologize for being late. I was upstairs. Unavoidably. Madam Clerk, could you open the roll? We'll take. Take attendance. We know you're here. All right, looks like we have a quorum. Thank you very much. All right, first on our agenda this afternoon is Chair Watts. You had wanted to start with 979, is that right, Chair Watts? That is correct, Mr. Chairman. All right. And again, Parliamentarily, we are starting with 979 because as I go through it, you will see that it is comprehensive. So it is by far the furthest reaching of all of the bills that we will be looking at today. And you'll also see as we go through it, you'll see two things. You'll see the vintage Vivian. There's some fine print here and there. And there was a lot more gray on the page. Fine print. Because it does make a difference. Yes, I tend to go to two decimal points, but now we are rounding it up so that people can understand what's at stake. But you'll also see eventually a really revealing chart that I did just a couple of months ago…
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