by James A. Bacon
Governor Glenn Youngkin has always fought for lower taxes, but his proposals — one-time rebates, tinkering with tax schedules — never captured the imagination. Speaking before the House and Senate Finance Committees today, he rolled out two initiatives that you don’t need a tax preparer to understand.
Proposal #1: a 12% cut to state income taxes across all brackets;
Proposal #2: eliminate the car tax.
To offset the cuts, according to the Virginian-Pilot, Youngkin would close the “big tech tax loophole” on digital goods and include those products as part of the sales and use tax base.
Chronic Amazon.com shoppers may take umbrage to that last idea — heck, I guess I’ll have to start paying sales tax on all my audiobook downloads — but it’s hard to argue that shoppers patronizing bricks-and-mortar merchants in Virginia should pay a sales tax while those purchasing digital goods online shouldn’t. It’ll be tough getting anything through the Democratic-dominated General Assembly, but this time Youngkin has a big advantage: Virginians can immediately see what’s in it for them.
