Session Summary 2008

Session Summary

The 60-day regular session of 2008 Legislature concluded at midnight on March 8. Lawmakers are still working to complete work on the state’s FY08-09 budget.  In the budget will be $4 million for the UST Insurance Fund for the next fiscal year.  We expect to get $4 million for the next two years.  There will be a special session to take up a teacher pension bill that did not make it through both houses. There could also be special items on the ‘Governor’s Call’ as well.

Below is a summary of some bills that passed that are pertinent to OMEGA Members.  The summaries are based on information and details that we have at this point. Final versions of all passed bills, with specific language and provisions, will be posted on the Legislature’s web site in coming weeks.  We will also update you with any major changes once the reviews have been done.

Taxation

Com. Sub. for S.B. 680 – provides for combined reporting technical corrections; Corporate Net Income Tax rate reductions (from 8.75% to 6.5% by 2015); Business Franchise Tax rate reductions (from .55% to zero by 2015); trigger mechanism to delay CNIT reductions if Rainy Day Fund drops below certain level; manufacturing credits; manufacturing inventory valuation; financial institution BFT liability

The schedule for Corporate Net Income
Tax Relief is as follows:

1/1/09 8.5%
1/1/12 7.75%
1/1/14 6.5%

The schedule for the Business Franchise Tax cuts is as follows:

1/1/09 - .48%
1/1/10 - .41%
1/1/11 - .34%
1/1/12 - .27%
1/1/13 - .21%
1/1/14 - 10%
1/1/15 - No tax

NOTE: CNIT rate reduction shall be suspended if Rainy Day Fund drops below 10% of general revenue budget as of preceding June 30. Suspension (and any subsequent suspension) continues until RDF exceeds the 10%, then all suspended reductions kick in the next  January 1.


S.B. 474 – will provide a state sales tax holiday program on purchases of energy-efficient appliances. The holiday will be during a one-week period in September, for three years.

H.B. 4017 - Updating terms used in Corporate Net Income Tax statutes based on changes in federal law.

Com. Sub. for H.B. 4421 - Repealing corporate license tax and creating corporate license tax replacement fees. Office of the Secretary of State by creating a new one-time $100 filing fee, and by permitting the Secretary of State to keep all of the $25 annual attorney-in-fact fees paid by corporations and limited partnerships.

Com. Sub. for S.B. 596 - Updating Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement. The purpose of this bill is to conform the provisions of the West Virginia Streamlined Sales and Use Tax statute, West Virginia Code §11-15B, to the current provisions of the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement as amended, to provide certain definitions of terms and to make certain technical and typographical corrections.

Com. Sub. for S.B. 545 - Relating to tax administration efficiency. The purpose of this bill is to require electronic filing of tax returns for taxpayers that satisfy the threshold requirements; to authorize the combining of tax assessments resulting from one audit; to authorize the Tax Commissioner to promulgate rules to determine the application of partial tax payments; to apply the statute of limitations separately to all taxes in a combined assessment; to authorize the recordation of one lien for all taxes in a combined assessment, to authorize health care providers to assert the exemption from consumers sales and service tax for purchases of drugs, durable medical goods, mobility enhancing equipment, prosthetic devices and insulin for use in providing professional or personal services through direct pay permits; to eliminate the periodic biennial renewal requirement for business registration certificates granted on or after the first day of July, two thousand ten; to impose a penalty for the involuntary cancellation, revocation or suspension of such certificates for any cause specified by statute, payable upon reinstatement, or issuance of a business registration certificate after the involuntary cancellation; revocation or suspension of a prior business registration certificate; to require the Tax Commissioner to design a new tax return form that combines the reporting of both Consumers Sales and Service Tax and Use Tax, and to require taxpayers to use the form required by the Tax Commissioner, and to simplify the annual West Virginia Withholding Tax imposed under the code by adopting the federal schedule and procedures.

HB 4465 - Relating to fees charged by the Secretary of State. The bill provides statutory authority for the Secretary of State to utilize a pre-paid account for business customers that request services of the Secretary's office.

SB 519 - Extending Hazardous Waste Material Management Fee Fund sunset provision. Our fees under this law will remain the same.  An audit is being done prior to any raise initiated by DEP.

Development/Government

Com. Sub. for H.B. 4637 – establishes a state Broadband Development Council, which, among other things will provide for the development of a strategy and mechanism to be employed in extending broadband access to every West Virginian by stimulating demand for those services and by constructing the necessary infrastructure to meet that demand and undertake a mapping of broadband infrastructure in the state.

H.B. 4018 – renews the small business linked deposit loan program for small, for-profit employers with less than 50 employees and gross annual receipts of $5 million or less. These state employers may apply for a linked deposit loan at 3 percent less than current market interest rates up to $250,000. The total fund established by the state treasurer is capped at $20 million fund. The loan is to be used to retain existing jobs or create new ones. This will be continued to 2013.


Workers’ Compensation

Com. Sub. for H.B. 4381 - this bill deals with the establishment of a workers’ compensation residual risk pool and a new guaranty association. These are two more steps to the road to totally privatize West Virginia’s workers compensation system. As more insurance companies come to the marketplace this year, there will be businesses with high risk that may need to be placed in a residual risk pool.

H.B. 4636 - this bill sets forth that an employer in default of workers compensation will be prohibited from doing business with the state. It also sets a cap (5.5 percent surcharge) on all policies to fund the operation of Office of Insurance Commissioners (OIC) for workers comp; sets forth that the OIC will establish rules for 3rd party administrators to function in the state; sets forth parameters for protests; sets forth a cap of $110,000 for the salaries for the board of review; and removes unnecessary language that was in code for a monopolistic system.

Civil Justice

SB 238 - Relating to increasing the monetary limit required to file a suit in circuit court. The purpose of this bill is to increase the jurisdictional limit for filing suits in circuit court from $300 to $1,000.

HB 4019 - Relating to civil actions filed in the courts of the state.  The purpose of this bill is to modify certain statutory venue provisions in a manner consistent with the common law doctrine of forum non conveniens.
 
HB 4120 - Prohibiting inclusion of specific dollar amounts or figures related to damages in complaints for personal injury or wrongful death actions. In any action to recover damages for personal injury or wrongful death, no specific dollar amount or figure relating to damages being sought may be included in the complaint. However, the complaint may include a statement reciting that the amount in controversy satisfies the minimum jurisdictional amount established for filing the action. Further, any party defendant may at any time request a written statement setting forth the nature and amount of damages sought. The request shall be served upon the plaintiff who shall serve a responsive statement as to the nature and amount of damages sought within thirty days thereafter. If no response is served within thirty days after receipt of service by the plaintiff, the party defendant requesting the statement may petition the court in which the action is pending to order the plaintiff to serve a responsive statement upon the requesting party defendant. This section applies only to causes of action which accrue on or after the first day of July, two thousand eight.

Highways

Com. Sub. for H.B. 4476 – will allow for private/public funding and tolls for highway construction projects, with legislative oversight. This legislation will give DOH another tool in their toolbox in their efforts to construct new highways in WV.  Under the legislation the department would have to solicit bids for proposed projects.  Some of those might be Route 35, and Highways 9 and  522.  DOH will have to bring the proposal of the private company, which would include the user fee/toll that they will be collecting back to the legislature and then to the Governor for approval.  The tool will only be available until 2013  when the legislation sunsets. Governor Manchin and DOH have given their word that if a public/private project comes into being that legislation will be passed so that motor carriers will NOT be double taxed.

HB 4712 - Supplementary appropriation to the Department of Transportation-Division of Motor Vehicles. This bill makes a supplementary appropriation of federal funds out of the treasury from the balance of federal moneys remaining unappropriated for the fiscal year ending the thirtieth day of June, two thousand eight, to the Department of Transportation - Division of Motor Vehicles.

HB 4715 - Making a supplementary appropriation to the Department of Transportation. This bill will add $75 million to the paving fund.

Miscellaneous

HB 4423 - Ensuring that beer kegs are not considered scrap metal unless received directly from a beer manufacturer.  This legislation provides for criminal penalties for any person who knowingly or with fraudulent intent violates any provision of this section, including the knowing failure to make a report or the knowing falsification of any required information, is guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction of a first offense thereof, shall be fined not less than one thousand dollars nor more than three thousand dollars; upon conviction of a second offense thereof, shall be fined not less than two thousand dollars and not more than four thousand dollars. The court in which the conviction occurred shall issue an order directing the tax commissioner to suspend for a period of six months any business registration certificate held by that person; and upon conviction of a third or subsequent offense thereof shall be fined not less than three thousand dollars and not more than five thousand dollars and,  the court in which the conviction occurred shall issue an order directing the tax commissioner to cancel any business registration certificate held by that person and state the date said cancellation shall take effect.

Com. Sub. For SB 340 - Requiring consumers' notification of information security breach.  This bill provides for notice to consumers when there is a breach of a secure data system; it sets forth a procedure to notify consumers when the unauthorized acquisition of computerized data that compromises the security, confidentiality or integrity of personal information has occurred.  Civil penalties and other remedies are provided for violations of this article.

HB 4389 - Removing requirement that resident violators of traffic laws be required to sign citations.  The purpose of this is so that officers can use the internet/email to transmit information to the department.

 Bills That Failed to Pass

There were a total of 2,143 bills introduced during this session.  Only 243 of those bills or 11% made it through the legislative process. 

As is customary, much of our effort is focused on keeping legislation from passing that would cause our industries harm.  Following are the key issues that we were opposed to and focused our greatest efforts toward defeating:

Bottle Bill.  This bill would have established a program to recycle beverage containers and reduce litter. The bottle bill required the use of returnable containers for many beverages and required the use of a 10 cent deposit; exempted deposits on containers from sales taxes and excluded deposits from business and occupation taxes; prescribed the powers and duties of DEP; and prescribed penalties and remedies.  Jan Vineyard met with the Governor and DEP regarding this bill and agreed to work with REAP to develop clean-up efforts throughout the state.

Captive Audience.  This bill would have prohibited employers from mandated captive meetings with their employees on political or religious matters. The bill provided a prohibition on these meetings and allowed employees to recover damages for any adverse actions taken against them for refusal to participate in such meetings.

Legislative Auditor.  This bill would have revised certain powers and duties of the Legislative Auditor. It authorized audits of state funds, including funds derived from a state controlled function, provides legislative intent as to proposals for regulating professions and occupations, allowed reports to be conducted by the Legislative Auditor by request, provided recommendations the Legislative Auditor may make in reports and expanded the time during which legislation may be considered before reapplication for regulation of a profession or occupation.

Personnel Records.  This bill would have allowed every employee, whether public or private, the right to inspect his or her personnel file, if the file exists. Inspection would have taken place during regular business hours at a location at or reasonably near the employee's place of employment. It would have required the employer, within a reasonable time after receipt of a written request from an employee, to provide the employee with a copy of all or any requested portion of his or her personnel file, provided the request reasonably identifies the materials to be copied. The employer would have been allowed to charge a fee for copying the file or any part of the file.  The employer may not have been required to provide a copy of an employee's personnel file more than two times in a calendar year, unless the employee requesting the personnel file has been terminated involuntary. In that circumstance, upon written request of the employee after notice of the involuntary termination, the employer would have had to provide another opportunity to review or request a copy of the personnel file.

Mandated Sick Benefits.  The purpose of this bill is to grant a minimum amount of paid sick leave to almost all employees working within the State of West Virginia. Employers would have been required to provide each employee with not less than seven days of paid sick leave annually for employees working thirty hours or more per week; or a pro rata amount of paid sick leave annually for employees working less than thirty hours per week or less than one thousand sixty hours per year. Sick leave would have begun to accumulate immediately, but no employer was required to grant accrued sick leave before ninety days from the commencement of employment.
Bill Introduced By OMEGA That Failed to Pass

We had a couple of bills introduced late in the session, which would have been beneficial to our members.  Due to the lateness in the session, we were not able to get these bills through the legislative process.  We have commitments from senators and delegates to champion these causes for us next year. We will work on these issues again next year.

Mandatory Carding. The purpose of this bill was to provide mandatory carding for all purchases of alcoholic liquor and nonintoxicating beer from a retailer. The bill additionally provided protection from criminal and civil liability for retailers that install transaction scan devices and require their agents, employees and servants to enforce mandatory carding.  We will be adding tobacco to this legislation in 2009.

Check Cashing Fees.  The purpose of this bill is to modify the check cashing service fee making it consistent with the national average which is 3%-government, 5%-payroll and 10% for personal checks of the face value of the check cashed.

Interim Studies

Although these resolutions were not adopted, these items may receive study during the Legislature’s 2008 interim meetings:

Senate Concurrent Resolution 74 - Study of property tax assessment and appeals process
 
House Concurrent Resolution 20 - Study of establishing a chancery court system in West Virginia
 
Judicial selection/campaign funding for judges

Thanks

For those of you who attended public hearings, made phone calls or sent letters to your representatives, OMEGA WV would like to thank you on behalf of all our industries.  Grassroots efforts really work!

A special thanks to our Legislative Committee, which includes Co-chairmen Greg Darby and Scott Roach; Michael Graney, Marshall Bishop, Sandra Morgenstern, Greg Rogers, Jeff Kramer, Rick Joseph, Ted Rogers, Darroll Talbott, Rob Sincavich, Sam Heater and Louis Southworth.

The Future

There is no time like the present to think about next year’s legislative session.  Think now about legislation that you would like to have passed to aid you in running an efficient business and communicate those to the OMEGA office. 

OMEGA PAC

Please consider donation to the OMEGA PAC.  The OMEGA PAC is a political action committed funded by voluntary contributions from the members of OMEGA.  OMEGA PAC assists those candidates for political office who are supportive of the goals and objectives of our industries.  


If you would like a complete listing of the bills that passed this session or copies of any particular bills, feel free to call the OMEGA office at (304) 343-5500.