Do you have general questions about your income taxes? Join us Monday from noon to 12:45 p.m. for an online chat at TimesDispatch.com. Tax experts Jim Young, an AARP volunteer, and Sheila Clark, operations director at Peoples Income Tax, will answer questions. If you can’t join us, submit questions beforehand to .

Members of the General Assembly confront many issues that are simple and clear-cut. Gov. Tim Kaine’s proposal to raise the cigarette tax is not one of them. The governor has linked the tax hike to Medicaid funding, effectively using hospitals and poor Virginians as hostages: Either raise the tax, or both will suffer. State lawmakers might create a third option by shifting money from other programs to prevent deeper Medicaid cuts without raising cigarette taxes. But doing that risks angering some other constituency, such as teachers and parents of schoolchildren.

NASHVILLE, Tenn.—Bristol Motor Speedway and the state of Tennessee are fighting in court over a tax bill on the money the racetrack brings in from the telecast of NASCAR races. Both sides were in a Nashville courtroom earlier this month trying to negotiate a way forward in the lawsuit that began after the state demanded that the speedway pay taxes on money it makes from televised races at the track.

A House of Delegates subcommittee rejected two bills yesterday that sought to increase Virginia’s cigarette excise tax, including Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s proposal to double the tax to 60 cents per pack. The House Finance subcommittee voted 8-2 to table that bill. The panel unanimously dismissed another bill backed by public-health groups that would have increased the tax to $1.19 per pack.

—Become a nonprofit. This is very popular in the commercial sector, but you have to follow a lot of rules: don’t air-condition your doghouse, avoid buying private planes, and never publicly flaunt your paramour. Can be limiting.—Become a church. This is a form of nonprofit, but many people feel safer under the shelter of religion. All the above rules apply.

The Chesterfield-Colonial Heights Department of Social Services will offer free tax preparation for people who are filing for the Earned Income Tax Credit. From tomorrow through April 9, volunteer tax preparers will be available each Thursday from 4 to 6:30 p.m. at the Smith-Wagner Building, 9501 Lucy Corr Circle, in the county government complex.

Years ago, fire-breathing advocates of term limits talked about how longtime officeholders in Washington had a tendency to “go native.“ Even the best-intentioned advocates of limited government, they said, gradually adopted the habits that put the interests of government first and the interests of constituents second. In some ways it was an unfair attack. Sometimes, congressmen and senators who had denounced Federal Program X while running for office learned, after a tour of Program X, that it did important and necessary work. And sometimes officeholders who still felt Program X was a waste after they learned more about it supported it anyway—because they had to trade votes for programs they deemed crucial to the nation’s well-being.

The assessments that help determine Richmond real estate tax bills will be barely changed, on average, this year. Although much of the nation has seen home prices tumble, a preliminary review in the city shows the taxable value of existing real estate rose 0.86 percent to $20.16 billion, City Assessor James D. Hester said yesterday. The slight increase means that unless the City Council changes the current tax rate, real estate tax bills won’t change much. Property owners’ assessment notices should be in the mail shortly.

Timothy Geithner, nominated by Barack Obama to be secretary of the treasury, seems to have a little problem with taxes and domestic help. Questions regarding taxes and other unpleasantries have dogged Charles Rangel, chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means—the panel responsible for tax policy. Allegations of crony loans from Countrywide (the lender that came to symbolize subprime excess) have been raised against Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee.

Here’s one quick-and-easy way to help solve the state budget crisis: Track down the tax dodgers. Virginia is owed $1.4 billion in past-due taxes. If it could collect all the money in arrears, it would be about halfway toward closing the fiscal shortfall. Gov. Tim Kaine has hired 55 workers to help track down the delinquent accounts. Good. It’s a crying shame that the state has to slash programs and lay off workers at places such as the Science Museum partly because some Virginians are—intentionally or not—shirking their civic duty.

Budget-balancing—job one of the 2009 General Assembly—could require something old (spending cuts), something new (higher taxes), something borrowed (debt-backed bonds) and something blue (Democrats). The legislature returns Wednesday for a 46-day, election-year session, the overarching theme of which is the deepening recession that has blown another hole—this time, at least $3.2 billion—in the two-year, $77 billion budget.

Gov. Tim Kaine proposes raising Virginia’s cigarette tax to help balance the state budget without making further cuts in important services such as Medicaid.

According to a 2007 news article: “Sen. Jim Webb drew on his populist views in proposing to snuff out a 61-cent-per-pack cigarette excise-tax increase to pay for expansion of health coverage for uninsured children. Webb, D-Va., contended that low-income workers would be unfairly targeted by the excise tax increase when he introduced Wednesday an amendment setting out another way to pay.“