Freedom Virginia today launched a new advertising and grassroots campaign calling for targeted tax relief in Virginia’s budget that directly helps working-class families.
The new ad will run digitally in Richmond and in the home districts of the House and Senate budget conferees.
The ad calls for the budget conferees to include a refundable Earned Income Tax Credit, which would mean an average of $500 tax cut for hundreds of thousands of Virginia families. The ad also calls for a one-time relief rebate that is based on income level and size of household versus the proposed blanket rebate, which would provide the same rebate to an individual making $200,000/year as to a single parent of two making $40,000/year.
These two policies would provide tax relief to lower- and middle-income families, who have seen a faster rise in household costs than the wealthiest families due to inflation.
“Cost of living is rising and the Virginians that are being hit hardest by the affordability crisis are left out of the proposed House budget,” the ad says. “The House’s solution excludes the needs of working families – those struggling the most with rising prices. A single person who makes $200,000 would get the same rebate as a single parent with two children earning $30,000.”
The ad is available here.
“Virginia’s budget conferees should put the families struggling with inflation first,” said Addison Hunter of Freedom Virginia. “To ignore our struggling parents would turn this budget into a failure for working people. This ad campaign calls on legislators to provide targeted tax relief that goes directly into the pockets of Virginia families facing rising cost of living today. It’s time for legislators to put kitchen table interests first, not special interests.”
With hundreds of thousands of Virginians looking to the legislature for relief from inflation, Freedom Virginia is calling on budget conferees to make choices that prioritize assistance for those that need it while promoting a fair budget for all, including:
- Refundable Earned Income Tax Credit: As proposed in the Senate budget, Freedom Virginia urges conferees to adopt a fully refundable state earned income tax credit at 20 percent of the federal EITC. The EITC becoming fully refundable would put roughly $500 in the pockets of those Virginians hit hardest by inflation by allowing them to receive a greater tax refund from the Commonwealth. Many of the tens of thousands of families who would qualify received a critical lifeline in 2021 of the federal Child Tax Credit, which has since expired.
- One-time relief rebates: As proposed in the Senate budget, Freedom Virginia encourages conferees to provide one-time rebates to Virginians to assist in economic recovery. Freedom Virginia calls on conferees to reform the current rebate construction, which gives a married person with no children earning $200,000 a year the same rebate as a single parent with two children earning $40,000 a year. Freedom Virginia encourages conferees to grow the rebate proposal by providing additional rebates based on the number of dependents in a household for individuals making less than $75,000 a year or couples making less than $150,000 a year.
- Oppose doubling the standard deduction: For years, the General Assembly has not fully funded Virginia’s K-12 schools, and other crucial public services like transportation and behavioral health have been underfunded for years, if not decades. At a time when Virginia’s record surplus is largely founded on one-time federal investments, we must make prudent decisions in the long-term interests of Virginia families. Freedom Virginia urges conferees to not double the standard deduction, which would blow a $2+ billion hole in our budget. Let’s keep Virginia’s fiscal future strong.
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