Back Taxes

For the past two weeks, potential city homeowners have been trying to get the answer to a seemingly simple question: Will those who buy houses at a special city tax sale have to pay delinquent city property taxes?Yesterday, they got an answer.The program will proceed as it was originally billed: 1,500 homes will go on the auction block May 12, and the buyers will not be saddled with either back taxes or liens.The confusion began March 24, when The Sun reported the plans to auction the homes free of liens and back taxes.

Harford County Del. Mary-Dulany James said Tuesday she received a pledge from the state comptroller he will not to penalize businesses who have become victims of alleged financial fraud by a the Bel Air payroll company Accu-Pay. Accu-Pay is being investigated for collecting payroll taxes but allegedly not directing those taxes to the state and federal governments, according to prior news reports by The Aegis and The Baltimore Sun . After hearing from a large number of her constituents concerned that back taxes unpaid by the payroll company would be pursued for collection by the State of Maryland, James said in a news release she has been working with numerous state officials, including Comptroller Peter Franchot, to potential victims are protected from further financial burden.

Baltimore Police Commissioner Thomas C. Frazier's name has been removed from the rolls of the city's tax deadbeats.The property tax bill on Mr. Frazier's Roland Park home, which was due last September, was paid yesterday -- a day after the commissioner's name was among the owners of 18,472 properties listed in legal notices as owing money for back taxes, water bills, alley paving and other services.The bill was paid yesterday after the commissioner's two-month-old final notice of the $9,364.

Representatives of business and labor groups urged Maryland lawmakers Friday to fall in line behind Gov. Martin O'Malley plan to raise taxes on gasoline to fund transportation projects. At a morning news conference in Lawyers Mall outside the State House, Greater Baltimore Committeee president Donald C. Fry said an increase in transportation revenue is necessary for Maryland's economic health and quality of life. Fry said additional funding is needed to continue work on such major projects as Baltimore's Red Line.

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton paid $14,615 in back taxes and interest yesterday to cover previously undisclosed profits from Mrs. Clinton's 1980 commodities trading, the White House disclosed.In a tense White House briefing for reporters, lawyers for the first family conceded that earlier statements they had made about Mrs. Clinton's commodities deals were "inoperative" and that Mrs. Clinton had made a profit of $6,498 in 1980 that was never reported to the Internal Revenue Service.

To pay or not to pay, that was the question.For the past two weeks, potential city homeowners have been trying to get the answer to a seemingly simple question: Will those who buy houses at a special city tax sale have to pay delinquent city property taxes?Yesterday, they got an answer.The program will proceed as it was originally billed: 1,500 homes will go on the auction block May 12, and the buyers will not be saddled with either back taxes or liens.The confusion began March 24, when The Sun reported the plans to auction the homes free of liens and back taxes.

For the third year in a row, the owners of Harrison's Pier V, the financially troubled Inner Harbor hotel and restaurant, have failed to pay their property taxes to the city, according to Baltimore tax records.They now owe $1.1 million in back property taxes with interest, according to city records.In addition, the owners owe the city $1 million in overdue payments on loans and on their lease of the prime waterfront land they rent from the city.The heavily subsidized hotel-restaurant, just east of the National Aquarium, opened in June 1989 with a 71-room inn and a waterfront restaurant resembling a lighthouse.

The state comptroller got few takers for a pay-less-now deal to companies using Delaware shelters to avoid at least $78 million in Maryland taxes, interest and penalties. Of the 70 companies that responded by yesterday's deadline, one paid approximately $250,000 and three others said they want to take the settlement. About a dozen asked for more time or made counteroffers. State officials would not identify the companies. The comptroller's office said it's possible more letters postmarked yesterday will show up in the next few days.

A day after Julius Henson resigned as Baltimore's real estate officer, city lawyers are seeking to verify that he and his former wife owe $56,000 in unpaid taxes and other liens on an abandoned inner-city property.The city Law Department has reopened a long-dormant investigation into the back taxes on 702 Mosher St., a vacant, dilapidated rowhouse in West Baltimore.Property records list Mr. Henson and Brenda A. Henson, his former wife, as the owners of the Mosher Street house.Tax records show that they owe $8,800 for unpaid taxes dating to 1985 and bills for water and boarding up the house.

Dozens of veterans groups across Maryland are threatened with the loss of their tax-exempt status and may owe the government hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes as a result of an investigation by the Internal Revenue Service.In an aggressive sweep that began in Maryland more than two years ago and is now being watched nationally, investigators with the IRS district office in Baltimore have audited at least 29 Veterans of Foreign Wars and American Legion posts across the state.The office has concluded that many of the organizations violated tax rules by allowing non-veterans to use their facilities -- a practice that it said inappropriately helped subsidize the costs for legitimate members.

The organizers of the first Baltimore Grand Prix — which ran up millions in debts to vendors and taxpayers — have begun paying their back taxes, an attorney for the closed business said Thursday. Steven D. Silverman, who represents Baltimore Racing Development, said company managers have entered into an agreement with the Maryland comptroller's office that will result in all of the nearly $600,000 in back taxes being paid. The company owes $567,594 to Baltimore in admissions and amusement taxes, and $23,838 in sales and use taxes to Maryland, according to state officials.

State officials have revoked tax breaks from more than 550 homes in Baltimore after a Baltimore Sun analysis showed that hundreds of owners have been receiving the homestead property tax credit on multiple houses in apparent violation of state law. The owners now owe a total of $730,000 in additional property tax for the current year. Because the city also has revised tax bills for the past three years, the government's windfall could approach $3 million, assuming the owners pay the back taxes.

Since 2009 Patrick Tong has received "homestead" property tax breaks worth $18,000 on three rowhouses he owns in East Baltimore. He's quick to agree that he hasn't been entitled to a penny of it. Homeowners qualify for the break only on their principal residence, and Tong doesn't live in any of the three houses, which he has used as storage "for several years. " He says he didn't even realize he was enjoying the steep discounts until being informed recently by a reporter. "I would like to correct or rescind that," Tong, an ophthalmologist in Columbia, said in an interview.

Following several years of tax problems, Midtown Yacht Club's landlord has taken over the business from its most recent managers. On Monday, Nathan Beveridge confirmed he repossessed Midtown earlier this month because the previous managers, J.G.J. Center, Inc., owed back taxes. He aims to re-open the bar in December with a new concept and name, Midtown BBQ and Brew. The Comptroller of Maryland also said Monday J.G.J. Center owes the state nearly $50,000 in back taxes. The company could not be reached for comment.

I've had it with the crocodile tears shed by conservatives over Social Security being a Ponzi scheme. Social Security has never missed a payment to any entitled beneficiary since its inception. Their payments to beneficiaries represent no more future indebtedness than veterans' benefits, salaries and pensions for federal workers or congressmen, or funds to fix highways. The only time the government might have defaulted on these was last month when the same conservatives held the government hostage over the debt ceiling in order to maintain Bush era tax cuts for the rich.

In a year when extensive state budget cuts are forecast, legislators are looking at one more possible way to boost revenue besides possibly raising the tax on alcohol and/or gasoline — reinstating the income tax surcharge on people who annually make $1 million or more. None of Howard's 11 state legislators is enthusiastic about the idea, though several said it might win support in the end, depending on other options for resolving the projected $1.6 billion revenue shortfall next fiscal year.

Harford County Del. Mary-Dulany James said Tuesday she received a pledge from the state comptroller he will not to penalize businesses who have become victims of alleged financial fraud by a the Bel Air payroll company Accu-Pay. Accu-Pay is being investigated for collecting payroll taxes but allegedly not directing those taxes to the state and federal governments, according to prior news reports by The Aegis and The Baltimore Sun . After hearing from a large number of her constituents concerned that back taxes unpaid by the payroll company would be pursued for collection by the State of Maryland, James said in a news release she has been working with numerous state officials, including Comptroller Peter Franchot, to potential victims are protected from further financial burden.

MUSTANG, Nev. -- Joe Conforte, the nation's most famous brothel owner, joined yesterday the ranks of the thousands of people whose property is auctioned for back taxes each year by the Internal Revenue Service.Resplendent in a blue cashmere topcoat and red silk tie, Mr. Conforte cursed the IRS and signed autographs for a sympathetic crowd as his Mustang Ranch went on the tax collector's auction block.Minutes after the gavel first fell, Joe and Sally Conforte lost their celebrated ranch to a top bid of $1.49 million.

TIP 5 IRS cuts the recession-ridden a little bit of slack Would you believe a kindler, gentler Internal Revenue Service? The agency says it is cutting some slack now for those who owe back taxes given the economic turmoil. Among the promised changes: * Suspension of collection actions if you lost a job, rely solely on Social Security or welfare income, suffer a "devastating illness" or have huge medical bills. * More flexibility if you can't keep up with your installment payments on back taxes because you lost your job or had some other hardship.

In an effort to provide tax relief to homeowners, Republican Sen. Barry Glassman has filed a bill to freeze at current levels those properties due for re-assessment in 2009 and to recalculate assessments completed in the last five years so that those reflect today's market values. The proposal would mean the properties along the Route 40 corridor would remain at the assessment level established three years ago rather than go through the process, scheduled to begin in January and likely to show an increase in value.