Additional Taxes

Two luxury condominium complexes alongside Baltimore's waterfront will have to pay nearly $2.3 million in additional property taxes this year, thanks to new assessed values that acknowledge — four years after the first residents moved in — that the buildings' empty units actually exist. The almost 190 units still owned by the developers of the Ritz-Carlton Residences and Silo Point had been taxed as if they were empty lots, even as residents were paying high-end prices – frequently more than $1 million in the case of the Ritz — to live in other condos in the same buildings.

Baltimore City is $14,026.32 less poor thanks to developer Blake Cordish. That's how much he paid after the state fixed a three-year-old error that vastly undervalued his Federal Hill mega-rowhouse. The payment, made on the Ides of March, covers additional property taxes for the past three years on his 4,600-square-foot home on East Montgomery Street. As The Baltimore Sun reported in January, the state Department of Assessments and Taxation erred when it reassessed his home in 2009.

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton said last night that he would release copies today of his income tax returns for 1977-1979, years in which he and Hillary Rodham Clinton first invested in the Arkansas real estate deal known as Whitewater.Mr. Clinton also revealed something his critics have maintained for months -- that he and his wife lost less money in the Whitewater partnership than they have claimed for more than two years.Only hours before the president's news conference -- his latest attempt to stop the political bleeding over Whitewater -- a prominent Republican critic, Rep. Jim Leach of Iowa, claimed that the Clintons might actually have profited from the investment.

ANNAPOLIS - A Carroll County legislator says officials must use spending cuts, not tax increases, to balance the state budget."Additional taxes should be considered only as a last resort," Sen.Charles H. Smelser, D-Carroll, Frederick, Howard, said last week.Smelser, a member of the Budget and Taxation Committee and chairman of the Capital Budget Subcommittee, responded to the Schaefer administration's raising, for the first time, the possibility that budget problems may result in the layoffs of a few state employees.

For General Assembly budget leaders, the next six weeks could be excruciating. As Maryland's deficit widens, the options available to balance the budget -- as required by the state constitution -- become increasingly distasteful. Every possible avenue offering fiscal relief must be pursued.That includes major tax increases and Draconian spending cuts. These are the two extremes on the government's budget pendulum. Legislators would rather avoid both options. But Maryland's fiscal outlook is so bleak that a combination of new taxes and sweeping program cuts might be unavoidable.

For the first time in Maryland's summer-fall budget crisis, Gov. William Donald Schaefer has uttered the dreaded "T" (for Tax) word. "It's now time to face realism," he said yesterday after receiving more gloomy news on sagging state revenues. He is staring at an 18-month deficit that exceeds one and a quarter billion dollars.Such an enormous gap cannot be closed without adopting a combination of deep program cuts and higher taxes. That was the governor's message as he pledged to continue squeezing government programs for more savings while also opening the door to possible tax hikes.

ANNAPOLIS -- A bill to restructure Maryland's unemployment insurance tax system and charge an immediate $61 million in additional taxes passed the Senate yesterday nearly unchanged from the version that passed the House two weeks ago.The 38-7 vote in favor of the legislation, written with the help of the Schaefer administration, virtually assures that the bill will become law this year.The higher taxes are needed, proponents of the measure argued, because the recession has depleted the state's unemployment insurance trust fund.

In the same week that the town council in Taneytown turned down a $100,000 state grant for a community health services center because it mistook the center as an abortion clinic, the town council in Sykesville also declined to accept a $65,000 federal grant to pay for an additional policeman.While Taneytown rejected its grant for the wrong reasons, however, Sykesville did so for the right reason.One little-recognized fact about government is that county and local governments depend on state and federal grants for many essential operations.

CITY RESIDENTS should favor all six bond issues on the Nov. 5 ballot so that Baltimore can sell $67.7 million in bonds for capital improvements to schools, parks, housing and to boost economic development over the next two years. With decreasing tax revenue and increasing expenses, it is important for cities to manage their debt responsibly. Baltimore has done that.The city can afford these new bond issues. Moreover, we cannot afford to ignore problems the bond money can help correct. Citizens should vote "yes" on all six bond authorizations.

The future of county government was debated last night before a crowd of about 75 at Gamber Fire Hall.Residents will vote May 2 on a referendum item that could change county government from the three-commissioner system to an executive and five-member council or a five-commissioner system.In last night's debate, Hampstead Mayor Christopher M. Nevin, who helped write the 41-page document, had a definite advantage over charter opponent Burke Lego, who was ill-prepared, saying he had spent only several hours studying the proposal.