- Governor Spanberger signed HB 167, ending tax exemptions for several prominent Confederate-linked organizations.
- The legislation reverses prior vetoes, targeting property and recordation taxes held by these groups since 1950.
- The United Daughters of the Confederacy faces an estimated annual tax bill of $50,000 following this change.
(VIRGINIA) – Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger signed HB 167 into law, ending long-standing tax exemptions for several Confederate-linked organizations, including the Virginia Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the Confederate Memorial Literary Society, Stonewall Jackson Memorial, the Virginia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, and the J.E.B. Stuart Birthplace Preservation Trust.
The law strips exemptions from state recordation taxes and property taxes that those groups had held since 1950. The change marks a reversal after former Governor Glenn Youngkin vetoed earlier versions in 2024 and 2025.
Delegate Alex Askew, a Democrat from Virginia Beach and Norfolk who sponsored the bill, said the exemptions “glorify the Confederacy and have whitewashed the commonwealth’s history.” He said the United Daughters of the Confederacy alone could face more than $50,000 a year in taxes.
The Virginia Senate passed the measure 21-17 on a Thursday and sent it to Spanberger. With her signature, a proposal that had failed under the prior administration became law under a new Virginia Governor.
HB 167 targets a narrow set of organizations, but it reaches into a long-running dispute over how Virginia treats institutions tied to the Confederacy. The exemptions dated to 1950, a period when Virginia and other Southern states were resisting racial integration.
That history framed Askew’s push for repeal. His bill did not create a new tax; it removed a carveout that had allowed specific groups to avoid taxes other organizations and property owners pay.
The affected organizations include some of the most recognizable names in Virginia’s Confederate heritage network. The Virginia Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy has long defended memorial and preservation work tied to Confederate veterans and leaders, while the other named groups hold or support historic sites, collections, and commemorative efforts linked to the Civil War’s Confederate side.
Spanberger’s action also follows a broader legislative effort in February 2026 aimed at Confederate symbols in public life. Lawmakers that month advanced related measures dealing with Confederate symbols, license plates, and statues.
No signing date accompanied the action in recent public announcements from Spanberger’s office. The bill’s final status, however, is established by the enactment itself.
Askew framed the repeal as a correction to state policy rather than a symbolic gesture. By tying the exemptions to a whitewashed account of the state’s past, he placed the measure inside a broader Democratic effort to undo privileges that lawmakers say were built during segregation-era resistance.
Virginia has spent several years revisiting Confederate names, markers, monuments, and state-sanctioned honors. Battles over those issues often turned on local control, historical preservation, and public memory. HB 167 brought the fight into tax law.
Under the new law, the organizations lose exemptions from two different categories of tax. Recordation taxes apply to certain recorded legal documents involving property, while property taxes affect the cost of holding land and buildings. Removing both exemptions increases the direct financial pressure on the groups covered by the statute.
That financial effect appears sharpest for the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Askew estimated the group could owe more than $50,000 annually, a figure that gives the clearest public measure of what the repeal may mean in practice.
The estimate also turns an argument about memory into one about money. A group that had operated with state-backed tax relief for decades now faces recurring costs that supporters of the bill say should never have been waived.
The United Daughters of the Confederacy answered in harsher terms. The group called the legislation “blatant discrimination” and said it punishes descendants of Confederate veterans.
It also suggested the law could prompt legal challenges. That response points to the next phase of a fight that has already moved through several legislative sessions and two governors’ administrations.
Youngkin’s vetoes in 2024 and 2025 had kept prior versions from taking effect. Those rejections gave opponents of repeal a temporary win, but they did not stop supporters from bringing the proposal back.
Askew’s persistence proved decisive once the governorship changed hands. Spanberger’s signature did what earlier Democratic-backed attempts could not do under Youngkin: turn repeal into enacted law.
The vote margin in the Senate, 21-17, showed that the issue still divides lawmakers. It passed, but not with broad bipartisan consensus.
That split mirrors the larger argument in Virginia politics over whether Confederate-linked organizations should be treated as historical custodians, private associations, or public beneficiaries of an older racial order. HB 167 answers that question in tax policy by ending state support that had survived for more than seven decades.
The list of affected groups matters because the law does not speak in generalities. It names organizations with institutional roots in memorialization and preservation, from the United Daughters of the Confederacy to the Sons of Confederate Veterans and trusts associated with Stonewall Jackson and J.E.B. Stuart.
Those names carry weight in Virginia’s political life. They also carry the burden of a legacy that lawmakers in Richmond have increasingly scrutinized since nationwide fights over Confederate monuments intensified earlier in the decade.
Removing exemptions first granted in 1950 links the debate to the state’s mid-century racial politics. Supporters of repeal have argued that benefits created during that period cannot be separated from the system of segregation and resistance to integration that shaped public policy at the time.
Opponents see something else: punishment aimed at descendants and heritage groups because of their association with Confederate history. The United Daughters of the Confederacy used that language directly in calling the measure discriminatory.
Neither argument turns on a disputed tax rate. The central dispute is over whether Virginia should continue giving special treatment to organizations whose missions, names, or properties honor the Confederacy.
Spanberger’s decision places her squarely on one side of that debate early in her tenure as Virginia Governor. The law aligns her administration with lawmakers seeking to remove official privileges attached to Confederate commemoration.
It also shows how policy shifts can follow changes in executive power. The same proposal met vetoes under Youngkin and approval under Spanberger, producing a clear break in how the governor’s office handles Confederate-linked legislation.
Virginia’s argument over public memory has often centered on statues in parks or names on schools and roadways. HB 167 moved the issue into the tax code, where symbolism is harder to separate from daily costs.
That shift may prove as consequential as the debate over monuments themselves. Public markers can come down in a single vote, but the loss of tax exemptions alters the operating balance for organizations that preserve buildings, archives, and commemorative spaces.
Some of those groups may absorb the added cost. Others may need to raise more private money, sell assets, or challenge the law in court if they choose to press the legal arguments they have raised.
The legislation leaves Virginia with a cleaner answer to a question that had lingered through two vetoes and several rounds of debate: whether the state should continue giving tax breaks to Confederate-linked groups. Spanberger answered no, and organizations such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy now face the bill.
