|Photo by Emma Delk| Moundsville City Mayor David Wood voiced his support for City Manager Rick Healy to send a letter to State Sen. Chris Rose voicing the city council's opposition to Senate Bill 933.

Moundsville City Council members unanimously approved City Manager Rick Healy to send an email to State Sen. Chris Rose voicing their opposition to a West Virginia Senate bill that increases the amount of annual revenue for businesses to be exempt from paying the Business & Occupation Tax.

Senate Bill 933 would exempt any business with an annual revenue under $25,000 from payment of any B&O Tax. The bill would also exempt any business with an annual revenue under $25,000 or any sole proprietor or independent contractor who does not maintain a permanent physical location in a city from having to obtain a municipal business license.

Senate Bill 933 will have its third reading on Wednesday. If the bill passes following Senate debate, the bill will then move to a vote in the West Virginia House of Delegates.

Healy first brought the senate bill to the council’s attention on Tuesday, stating that the “worst part” of the bill was its B&O Tax exemption. He noted that the B&O Tax was a “self-reporting tax,” meaning that someone with a gross annual revenue of $30,000 could report having a gross annual revenue of $24,000 and say they do not owe any B&O taxes.

Healy added that landlords in the city with “one or two rentals” also “probably” made under $25,000 in annual revenue, meaning the city would lose B&O taxes from many landlords in the city.

A significant contributor to the city’s proposed 2025-26 General Fund Budget of approximately $19.3 million was $2.7 million from the B&O Tax. Healy said he and city staff could not calculate the potential revenue losses for the city if the senate bill became a law due to the difficulty of tracking businesses in the city that make under $25,000 in annual revenue.

“The loss of any amount of B&O [taxes] in any amount is devastating,” Healy said. “B&O Tax pays all of our bills, pays our salaries, allows us to pay benefits and covers our basic, essential needs. If we were to start losing that, then we have to start eliminating things.

So unless the legislature is willing to provide a backfill for that loss, which there’s been no discussion of that, we’re totally against any additional cuts to the B&O Tax,” Healy continued.

Healy added that the city would not lose much revenue from the senate bill’s stipulation regarding business licenses, as the city makes a “fairly minimal amount” for charging $15 for a business license. He said the “most important thing” about city licenses was that they allowed the city to know “who’s operating in our city and gives the city the ability to filter out any problems.”

“We do not want to lose our ability to know who’s doing business in our city as that helps us control and protect the residents without having unscrupulous business people in the city that we don’t know about,” Healy said.

Council members were unanimous in their approval of Healy sending the email to Rose voicing their opposition to the senate bill. Mayor David Wood said that though he did not know the reasoning behind the senate bill, his concern was, “Where is it going to stop?” regarding the state government reducing B&O Tax revenues for cities.