CHARLESTON — Legislation passed toward the end of the 2021 regular session was supposed to fix constitutional issues with the way West Virginia assesses the value of property with natural gas production.
Instead, no one is happy with the new rules.
Lawmakers passed House Bill 2581 in April over the objections of several Northern Panhandle and North Central West Virginia elected leaders. The bill required the State Tax Commissioner to develop a revised methodology to value oil and natural gas properties.
The State Tax Department submitted an emergency rule over the summer for how it planned to carry out HB 2581, though the Legislature’s Rule-Making Review Committee has yet to take up the final rule. But Marshall County Assessor Eric Buzzard hopes lawmakers can scrap the rule and start over during the 2022
