Individual and corporate income tax credit;employers of National Guard members and self-employed National Guardmembers. Provides for taxable years 2020 through 2024 a nonrefundabletax credit against individual and corporate income taxes for (i) wages paid by an employer to an employee who is an active or reserveVirginia National Guard member or (ii) income of a self-employedactive or reserve Virginia National Guard member attributable to his business. The amount of the credit shall be 25 percent if such memberwas in a military pay status for 65 days or more during such taxableyear or 15 percent if such member was in a military pay status forat least 45 days but less than 65 days during such taxable year.The credit shall not be allowed if such member was in a military pay status for less than 45 days during such taxable year. The billallows a taxpayer to carry unused credits over for up to five taxableyears.
Sponsored bills
Income tax; subtraction for low-income military veterans with a permanent service-connected disability. Provides an income tax subtraction for the military retirement income received by a veteran who has been rated with a 100 percent service-connected, permanent, and total disability. The bill provides that the subtraction is available only to those taxpayers whose federal adjusted gross income is not greater than 150 percent of the federal poverty level for a four-person household. This bill incorporates HB 125.
Petition for vacatur and expungement of convictionsand police and court records of victims of human trafficking.Allows any person who was a victim of human trafficking at the timeof an offense that led to a criminal charge or conviction of certaincrimes to petition the court to vacate such conviction and expungethe police and court records related to such conviction or to expungethe police and court records related to such charge. The bill provides that there is a rebuttable presumption that a person's participationin an offense was a result of having been a victim of human traffickingif there is official documentation, defined in the bill, of the petitioner'sstatus as a victim of human trafficking at the time of the offense.
General Assembly meetings; streaming and recording. Requires the Clerk of the House of Delegates and the Clerk of theSenate to ensure that every (i) subcommittee or committee meetingof a standing committee of the General Assembly, regardless of meetingdate, and (ii) floor session of the House of Delegates or the Senate,including any joint session of the houses, is streamed with closedcaptioning, recorded and archived. The bill defines "stream" and specifiesthat a qualifying meeting is one the date and time of which havebeen scheduled on a public website of any agency of the General Assemblyfor at least one hour prior to the meeting and that takes place inthe State Capitol, the Pocahontas Building, or the General AssemblyBuilding in Richmond. The bill has a delayed effective date of October1, 2020.
Individual and corporate income tax credit;employers of military spouses. Provides for taxable years 2020through 2024 a nonrefundable tax credit against individual and corporate income taxes for (i) wages paid by an employer to the spouse of an active member of the United States armed forces or (ii) income ofa self-employed spouse of an active member of the United States armedforces. The amount of the credit shall be 25 percent of such wagesor income. The bill allows a taxpayer to carry unused credits overfor up to five taxable years.
Marijuana; legalization of simple marijuanapossession; penalty. Eliminates criminal penalties for possessionof marijuana for persons who are 21 years of age or older. The bill also decriminalizes marijuana possession for persons under 21 yearsof age and provides a civil penalty of no more than $50 for a firstviolation, $100 for a second violation, and $250 for a third or subsequentviolation. Under current law, a first offense is punishable by amaximum fine of $500 and a maximum jail sentence of 30 days, and subsequent offenses are a Class 1 misdemeanor. The bill also modifies severalother criminal penalties related to marijuana. The bill establishesa regulatory scheme for the regulation of marijuana cultivation facilities,marijuana manufacturing facilities, marijuana testing facilities,and retail marijuana stores by the Board of Agriculture and ConsumerServices. The bill imposes a tax on retail marijuana and retail marijuanaproducts sold by a retail marijuana store at a rate of 9.7 percent(for a total sales tax of 15 percent) and provides that 67 percentof the revenues collected from the tax be deposited into the generalfund and 33 percent of the revenues be deposited into a "Retail MarijuanaEducation Support Fund" to be used solely for purposes of public education.
Health insurance; mandated coverage for hearing aids for minors. Requires health insurers, health maintenance organizations, and corporations providing health care coverage subscription contracts to provide coverage for hearing aids and related services for children 18 years of age or younger when a licensed audiologist prescribes such hearing aids and related services. The coverage includes one hearing aid per hearing-impaired ear, up to a cost of $1,500, every 24 months. The measure applies to policies, contracts, and plans delivered, issued for delivery, or renewed on and after January 1, 2021.
Transit funding. Raises the existing regional transportation fee, a grantor's tax, from $0.15 per $100 to $0.20 per $100 for localities in the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority that are also members of the Northern Virginia Transportation District. The bill requires half of the revenues to be deposited in the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority Fund and half to be deposited in the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) Capital Fund. The rate of tax in the other localities will remain at $0.15 per $100, with one-third of the revenues to be retained by the locality to be used for transportation purposes and the other two-thirds to be deposited in the Northern Virginia Transportation District Fund. The bill also raises the existing transient occupancy tax in the localities located in the Northern Virginia Transportation District from $2 to $3, with all of the revenues from the tax being used to support WMATA. This bill incorporates HB 977.
Expungement of police and court records.Provides that a court that enters a nolle prosequi for a criminalcharge or dismisses such charge for any reason may, upon motion ofthe person charged, enter an order requiring the expungement of thepolice and court records relating to the charge.
Constitutional amendment (voter referendum); personal property tax exemption; motor vehicle owned by a veteran who is disabled. Provides for a referendum at the November 3, 2020, election to approve or reject a personal property tax exemption for a motor vehicle that is owned and used primarily by or for a veteran of the Armed Forces of the United States or the Virginia National Guard who has a 100 percent service-connected, permanent, and total disability.