PANEL UNANIMOUSLY OKS INCREASING TAX ON WEALTHY

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, February 13, 1992                   TAG: 9202130336
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: GREG SCHNEIDER and ROB EURE STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium
PANEL UNANIMOUSLY OKS INCREASING TAX ON WEALTHY
The wealthiest Virginians would have to pay an average of $350 more a year in state income taxes under a proposal endorsed Wednesday by the Senate Finance Committee.
The panel voted unanimously to increase levies on Virginians with taxable income over $100,000, a move that would raise $106 million in the next two years.
The measure would tax the richest 2.8 percent of Virginians at a rate of 6.25 percent. Now, everyone who earns $17,000 or more pays the same rate - 5.75 percent.
The senators seemed eager to champion a tax on the rich. Sen. Madison Marye, D-Shawsville, said it was the kind of thing he could talk about in the local barbershop.
"It will be a very popular bill in the barber shop," agreed Finance Committee Chairman Hunter Andrews, D-Hampton. `Not at the Homestead [barbershop], but at your barbershop."
The bill's sponsor, Sen. Elliot Schewel, D-Lynchburg, is one of the wealthiest members of the legislature, and the measure even got support from no-tax Republicans.
In other tax action Wednesday:

The Senate Finance Committee voted 8-7 to kill a bill that would have raised the cigarette tax from 2.5 cents to 5.5 cents a pack.
The House Finance Committee killed a tax on cigarette manufacturers that would have raised $250 million a year for public education, but approved a modest measure allowing a 5 cents-per-pack increase in the tax for Roanoke and Prince William counties.

The committees endorsed bills to impose the state's 4.5 percent sales tax on alcohol sold in state package stores. The measure would raise $19.6 million in the next two years. The House proposal would funnel that money into Medicaid.
Gov. Douglas Wilder's coveted repeal of the sales tax on non-prescription drugs, scheduled for this July, would be delayed for two years under a bill endorsed by the Senate Finance Committee.
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by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB