Tag: Department of Revenue

Governor Not Calling for Additional Budget Cuts

Gov. Tomblin is telling state agencies to keep their budgets on par with this year’s spending plans.

The Charleston Daily Mail reports Revenue Secretary Bob Kiss last week sent instructions to agency heads on submitting 2016 budget requests. The 2015 fiscal year started in July.

After two years of 7.5 percent reductions, Kiss’ correspondence said additional funding would be considered only in rare cases.

Last week, the Department of Revenue announced general revenue fell $17.4 million short in July.

The shortfall was partly due to one-time revenue transfers carried over from June. Deputy Revenue Secretary Mark Muchow also pointed to sluggish sales and personal income tax growth as problematic. 

W.Va. Revenue Collections Not Meeting Projections

The West Virginia Department of Revenue says revenue collections are more than 17 million dollars below projections in the first month of the new budget year.

The Charleston Gazette reports a variety of taxes came in below estimates in July causing the shortfall. The two biggest sources of tax revenue, consumer sales tax and personal income taxes, both came in below estimates.

Sales tax collections were about one and a half million dollars below estimates, while income tax collections were about 11 million dollars less than projected.

Deputy Revenue Secretary Mark Muchow says the state’s economy needs to grow by about 4 percent in order to balance the state budget by the end of the fiscal year.

Many West Virginians File Last-Minute Tax Returns

About 30 percent of West Virginia taxpayers wait until the final week to file their state returns.

Department of Revenue Deputy Secretary John Doyle tells The Exponent Telegram that the department receives about 25 percent of returns in the week before April 15. Another 5 percent to 8 percent of returns are received after April 15.

Procrastinating filing a return can delay receiving a tax refund.

Doyle says taxpayers who haven’t yet filed returns will have to wait four to six weeks to receive their refunds.

An Internal Revenue Service spokesman, Mark Hanson, says about 20 percent of taxpayers wait until April to file their federal returns.

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