Charleston Regional Chamber Celebrates Victory in its Legislative Agenda
The agenda of the Charleston Regional Chamber of Commerce found success as the Legislative session drew to a close Saturday night. Two primary goals of the Chamber was for the legislature to continue the work of the Tax Modernization project Governor Manchin began last year and to educate the legislature on the value of implementing anti-passive investment companies legislation.

Jim Sturgeon, Chairman of the Charleston Regional Chamber of Commerce says the anti-PIC legislation (also called “combined reporting”) was the key factor in the success of continued tax cuts in the business franchise tax. “To our knowledge, the only two advocacy groups in the state who were advocating for anti-PIC legislation was the Charleston Regional Chamber of Commerce and the Society of CPA's. Everyone wanted reduced business taxes, but these two groups exhibited true leadership by finding a way to pay for the reduction in the business franchise tax, through anti-PIC legislation. That is what I call building success by inventing solutions. We owe a debt of gratitude to Senator McCabe and Senator Helmick as well as the entire Senate Finance committee who took the time to research and pass this legislation.”
Many corporate taxpayers across the country are using sophisticated tax shelters such as Passive Investment Companies (“PICs”) to artificially reduce or eliminate their share of state taxes. Other states have passed statutes to modernize their tax laws to eliminate such artificial planning techniques. One independent study group rated West Virginia as having the largest proportional loss of revenue among all the states due to such tax shelters. “The anti-PIC legislation did two important things.” said Matthew Ballard, President of the Charleston Regional Chamber of Commerce. “First, it stops tax shelters set up by companies who don't want to pay their fair share of state taxes that support services and infrastructure in our state. Second, revenue the state will collect from this change gave the legislature the room in the budget to maneuver and successfully pass a tax cut to the Business Franchise Tax. This was a win-win for business and our great state.”

The Charleston Regional Chamber will spend the next 48 hours evaluating all the legislation passed during the session and in particular on the last night of session and report to its membership. “There are still some bills that came out of conference committee that cannot yet be evaluated, but by Tuesday morning, we ought to have all the final language and we can report to our membership,” said Ballard.