RICHMOND — A Senate committee has revived a bill that would turn Virginia’s online tax-filing assistance services over to private companies.
After voting down the bill, sponsored by Del. Kathy Byron, R-Campbell County, on Tuesday, the Senate Finance Committee reconsidered its vote without prior notice Wednesday and sent it to the Senate floor on a 10-4 vote.
Sen. Roscoe Reynolds, D-Henry County, one of four senators who changed and voted for HB 1349 on its second trip through the committee, said the change occurred when a business agreed to cover the cost some online taxpayers would incur under Byron’s proposal.
More than 278,000 Virginians filed their taxes electronically last year under the state’s free program called iFile.
General Assembly staffers analyzed Byron’s bill and said that it could require 90,000 of those tax filers to pay for the online service, which the bill proposes to call by the name Free File.
Byron told the committee Tuesday that the average cost for those filers would be $10.
Byron’s bill calls for an online link to be established between Virginia’s system and an IRS electronic filing system.
Byron said Virginians gain an advantage under the Free File system she proposed, because state tax preparers who might answer tax filers’ questions don’t have any incentive to tell people about the earned-income tax credit that could save them tax dollars. The Free File program would search out the best tax strategy for them, Byron said.
The bill has not been discussed in the full Senate. It passed the House of Delegates 86-10 about three weeks ago.
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