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Howell: No tax increases
House Speaker Bill Howell says he is determined that the governor's and legislature's tax-reform initiative will not wind up boosting taxes.
By CHELYEN DAVIS
Date published: 7/22/2003
RICHMOND--If the General Assembly's 10-member panel studying tax reform recommends raising taxes in any way, they could face a one-man roadblock named Bill Howell.
Howell, as House speaker, is head of a conservative, largely antitax majority in the House.
He has been vocal about what he doesn't want to see from tax reform--tax increases--as well as about whom he thinks should lead the way: Gov. Mark Warner.
Howell has not attended the tax reform commission's two recent meetings, instead sending an aide to observe.
But his disapproval of the commission's recommendations could easily doom them. He takes many cues from his caucus, but caucus members also take cues from him.
And Howell doesn't think the House Republican caucus, nor the voters, will approve of some of the tax solutions that have so far been suggested.
In a meeting with the commission last week, Warner said it was unfair that Virginia doesn't tax services or Internet sales.
Some members of the commission, Republican and Democrat alike, seem to agree. But not Howell, who said Warner's statements simply proved what Republicans have been claiming for months: that Warner means to use tax reform to raise taxes.
"He certainly did raise the specter of generating new tax revenue from new sources, and I have some concerns about that," Howell said in an interview.
"I think a tax on services would be terribly inappropriate, and I think a tax on Internet sales is fraught with a lot of problems. At least, he's bringing them up and they will now be subject to discussion within our committee, and I wish he'd been a little bit more specific. If his purpose was not to talk about specifics before the election, he probably should not have gotten into specifics before the committee."
Howell spent much of the summer urging Warner to get out front on tax reform. He wanted the governor to lay out a package of proposals early so the General Assembly elections this fall could serve as a sort of referendum on them.
Warner resisted, saying he didn't want tax proposals trampled by the partisanship of elections.
Howell seems resigned to the idea that Warner will not offer a detailed plan before November. But the differing positions commission members have already expressed reaffirm Howell's belief that Warner should be the one crafting a tax package.
Date published: 7/22/2003
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