Budget And Tax

Seeking to share Maryland's greater prosperity with the working poor, several lawmakers and advocacy groups want to allow such families to cash in their earned income tax credits.Under a formula that considers family size, income and other factors, Maryland gives low-wage families a credit that reduces or eliminates their state tax bill. But unlike the federal government, if the credit is greater than taxes owed, the state does not send them a check.A proposal unveiled yesterday would allow them to receive a payment of up to 15 percent of their federal credit.

ON WEDNESDAY, the Maryland General Assembly convenes for its 1997 regular session. Yet much of the discussion won't revolve around issues with immediate impact; the focus will be on proposals to shape Maryland as it enters the 21st century.Most major matters on the governor's agenda are multi-year projects: Income-tax cuts; reining in land-use sprawl; recycling old industrial sites; free college tuition; a pre-paid tuition program; city school aid. These are far-reaching initiatives, some with big-ticket price tags.

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton and the Republican leaders of Congress barely had time two weeks ago to toast the end of their long political war over the budget before the squabbling resumed.They had announced, with much self-congratulation, their agreement on a plan to balance the federal budget by 2002. But the fizz in the celebratory champagne seemed to outlast the accord. Republican leaders contended that they made no guarantees about certain pet proposals of Clinton's; the White House insisted that there had been firm commitments.

LET'S GET one thing clear: Gov. Parris N. Glendening, like any good politician, would love to cut taxes. It would blunt a Republican challenge in 1998 and improve the governor's popularity.But wishing and doing are two different things. In his 19 months as governor, Mr. Glendening has adopted a cautious, conservative approach on budget and tax matters. He's not about to embark on a feel-good tax cut plan that could cripple the state's balance sheet,In June, Mr. Glendening repeated his concern that Maryland's slow-growth economy makes a tax cut unlikely.

State Sen. William A. Amoss is feeling the heat this fall in his campaign for re-election in District 35, which encompasses portions of Harford and Cecil counties.The 20-year elected official is facing two challengers: Republican Gwendalynne G. Corkran and Independent Catharine Wilson."I'm running a hard campaign . . . as hard as the first time I ran for Senate," said Mr. Amoss, a Democrat. The senator was elected to office in 1982, after serving eight years as a delegate.He's banking on his experience to carry him through in the Nov. 8 general election.

Youth was given more support than age last night as loud applause followed several requests to increase funding for school building projects during the annual hearing on the Carroll County budget and tax rate.In contrast, boos and hisses greeted suggestions from the Carroll County Taxpayers Association, a group of mostly senior citizens that favors cuts in the budget and tax rate."Ladies and gentlemen, please," county Budget Director Steven D. Powell chided as parents responded to Burt Lego's suggestion that the county schools' budget be trimmed first.

Carroll County will be writing a check to Lehigh Portland Cement Co. for several hundred thousand dollars to repay the Union Bridge company for four years worth of taxes.The company paid the taxes on $4 million worth of property that the Maryland Court of Appeals ruled should never have been taxed.County, Union Bridge and Lehigh officials yesterday were still trying to figure out the impact of the court's refusal last week to reconsider a Court of Special Appeals decision in April that wiped Lehigh's cement storage silos from the county tax rolls.

ANNAPOLIS -- Don't think of it as a gas tax. Think of it as a "jobs" bill.Truckers, gas station dealers, engineers, highway contractors, asphalt firms, sand and gravel companies, business groups and county executives lined up yesterday in support of Gov. William Donald Schaefer's proposal to raise Maryland's 18.5-cents-a-gallon gasoline tax to 23.5 cents a gallon.In different ways, almost all of them said the same thing: Raising the gas tax will jump-start the state's stalled highway construction industry, and that in turn will stimulate the state's recession-weary economy.

Carroll could lose as much as $10.7 million for fiscal 1993 under the so-called doomsday budget the General Assembly expects to adopt, atleast temporarily.But because the state's budget and tax proposals are still unresolved, the county commissioners and school administrators have suspended their efforts to compensate for pending cuts inaid."I really think it's bad that these fellows have been there 90 days and we still have a budget crisis," said Commissioner President Donald I. Dell. "It's pretty discouraging."

AIDS VIRUSBill would allow agency to track casesThe House of Delegates enacted a bill yesterday allowing the state health department to track HIV cases more closely than it does now.The bill, which passed by a unanimous vote, now goes to its sponsor, Gov. William Donald Schaefer, to be signed into law.The measure allows the state to collect data on people infected with human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS, without recording their names.The state would have to assign unique code numbers to people who test positive for HIV to protect their identities.

In tough economic times, lawmakers must make difficult choices about how to allocate resources and rein in spending. But too often, the brunt of the pain falls on the most vulnerable members of society as cuts in social services and the agencies that administer them not only can't keep up with rising needs but find themselves falling further and further behind. In an economy where unemployment is still climbing, businesses are shutting their doors and the foreclosure crisis keeps unfolding, the people hit hardest by Maryland's budget crunch are the state's poorest residents.

With state budget cuts and declining revenues looming, Howard County Executive Ken Ulman has switched lobbyists. Ulman recently announced the hiring of Edward M. "Ned" Cheston, a staff lawyer for the General Assembly's Senate Budget and Tax Committee, to replace Joan Lewis Kennedy. Cheston, 31, of Annapolis, will start Monday at a salary of $92,394. His responsibility will be to serve as the administration's chief liaison and advocate to the General Assembly and the County Council. "He is somebody who has incredible knowledge of the legislative process and most importantly the budget," Ulman said.

There's very little enthusiasm among Howard County's legislators for the special session of the General Assembly set to begin Oct. 29, and some legislators are downright unhappy about it. "Some people have to take an [unpaid] leave of absence from their jobs, and a month before Christmas they lose all that money," said Democratic Del. James E. Malone, a Baltimore County firefighter whose District 12A includes part of Howard. Besides, what will members of other committees do while the budget and tax legislators hold hearings and debate Gov. Martin O'Malley's revenue package?

Maryland property owners wouldn't get a tax break in the coming year, but school construction would get a $50 million boost under a state budget plan agreed to late yesterday by General Assembly negotiators. After hours of private meetings between House and Senate fiscal leaders, the House of Delegates agreed to drop its push for a rollback of the state portion of the property tax, which was increased in 2003 under a budget balancing compromise with Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. House leaders had wanted to give homeowners a break of $48 for each $100,000 of their home's property value.

Maryland is collecting more tax revenue than anticipated, a trend sure to influence Ehrlich administration decisions on whether to cut deeply into health care for children, addicts and the poor. The treasury should take in $242.6 million more in the current budget year than projected when officials were preparing the spending plan six months ago, according to unofficial figures obtained by The Sun. The state Bureau of Revenue Estimates presented the figures yesterday to Budget Secretary James C. "Chip" DiPaula Jr. as a guideline for preparing next year's $24 billion budget.

All that stands between Baltimore and its next budget are two City Council meetings, two committee work sessions, a Board of Estimates vote and untold arm-twisting as the council and Mayor Martin O'Malley try to cut some jobs and services, save others, and work out the important details of at least $30 million in new taxes. Not bad for a day's work. City officials expect to complete a flurry of meetings today that will finalize a tax package and a $2.1 billion budget, even though some of the most basic particulars - how millions of dollars will be raised and spent - remain up in the air. While Baltimore budgets often pass in down-to-the-wire style, some council members and observers say that seems especially true now, less than two weeks before the new fiscal year starts July 1, because all the last-minute maneuvering will shape the heftiest tax package in memory.

The revenue package passed by the House of Delegates this week could hurt Maryland's tax-burden ranking among the states but wouldn't make it the "tax hell" some critics predict, according to a respected research group. The state now ranks roughly in the middle of the pack in terms of state and local tax burden, according to the Washington-based Tax Foundation. William Ahern, spokesman for the group, said the net $670 million increase proposed by House Speaker Michael E. Busch could push it up to about 15th if other states hold their rates stable.

AS FEDERAL RESERVE chairman for more than 15 years, Alan Greenspan has proved himself a master of the obtuse utterance -- what he once described as the art of incoherent mumbling. In the course of attempting to guide the nation's economy alongside four presidents and through boom and bust, Mr. Greenspan also has been, by turns, an inflation-fighter, deficit hawk and, most recently, tax-cut booster. Given that political agility -- and suspicions that he's sympathetic to the Republican tax-cut agenda -- his clear-cut challenge this week to the economic theory undergirding President Bush's latest budget and tax proposals was striking.

THIS WAS going to be a column about Maryland's outrageously high taxes, but, as sometimes happens, the truth messed up a good story. Maryland is certainly not a "low-tax state," as claimed by the Maryland Budget and Tax Policy Institute. But neither is it the "tax hell" described by Republican Gov.-elect Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. in his 2001 fund-raising pitches. With a few exceptions, Maryland taxes seem just about right. That's not a conclusion you're likely to hear repeated much by either side as the General Assembly deals with a projected budget deficit of $1.2 billion for fiscal 2004.

With Maryland facing a $1.2 billion budget hole next year, the time has come to end tax breaks for ski mountains, country clubs and purchasers of bulk gold and platinum, says a group that has scoured the state tax code for loopholes. Progressive Maryland, an alliance of labor unions, faith-based organizations and community groups, said yesterday it has identified 52 tax exceptions that primarily benefit corporations and the wealthy. Their elimination would generate at least $421 million for the state budget, meaning vital services to children and seniors could be spared cuts, the report concludes.