Del. David Englin (D-Alexandria) and Del. Ben Cline (R-Rockbridge) held a news conference Wednesday to discuss their proposals to institutionalize transparency and accountability requirements on tax preferences. Englin, a co-founder of the Progressive Caucus, and Cline, co-chairman of the Conservative Caucus, both acknowledge how rare it is for both ends of the political spectrum to find such common ground.
“Whenever the most conservative and the most liberal members of the General Assembly see eye-to-eye on an issue, it’s worth sitting up and taking notice,” said Englin. “Liberals and conservatives agree that Virginia needs more transparency and accountability for all of the tax preferences, loopholes, and giveaways that cause us to lose billions in revenue.”
“As the chair of the House Conservative Caucus and one of the founders of the House Progressive Caucus, we rarely see eye-to-eye on issues,” said Cline. “But when it comes to tax fairness, simplification of the tax code and making sure that taxpayers’ money is used wisely here in Richmond, I think we’ve found a bill that we could both agree on and, hopefully, by reviewing all of our tax preferences, we’ll be able to achieve that goal for the taxpayers.”
According to a recent draft report by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, the General Assembly’s auditing arm, Virginia’s 187 tax preferences cost taxpayers $12.5 billion in lost revenue in 2008, the most recent year of available data. The report showed that only 20 of those tax preferences include reporting and evaluation of what they cost and whether they achieve their intended purpose, and 131 of the preferences receive no regular oversight at all.
Legislation proposed by Englin and Cline would require a five-year sunset on all new tax preferences and would requirement the Department of Taxation to analyze and report information about the revenue impact of those tax preferences so legislators can properly scrutinize and evaluate whether they should remain on the books.