City Tax

Area billboard companies are speaking out against a proposed tax introduced this week by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. In a hearing before the City Council's taxation committee Thursday, the global billboard firm Clear Channel Outdoor offered to give the city more than $1 million in free advertising if the administration would drop plans for a tax on billboards. If not, the company's local general manager said, the city could face a lawsuit. "Will this legislation stand up to a legal challenge [that could]

Baltimore City Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has proposed to use a substantial portion of stormwater fee revenues - the "rain tax" - to lower the city's overwhelmingly high property tax ("Faceoff over city water fee plan," May 6). The mayor's relentless assaults on city residents in an attempt to generate ever more tax revenue to cover the major cause of its financial problems - namely its expenditure of 20 percent of revenues on retirees - are not even thinly veiled anymore. The city's large tax and fee increases, including speed cameras, trash fees and now the rain tax, have been enacted in an attempt to lower the property tax without a corresponding reduction in city expenditures and are nothing more than a shell game.

A steady procession of business leaders told City Council members yesterday that Mayor Martin O'Malley's proposed tax package will stifle Baltimore's real estate market and make it more expensive for companies to operate in the city. Representatives from the real estate, telecommunications and nonprofit industries expressed opposition to two elements of the mayor's three-pronged tax plan aimed at eliminating a projected $40 million deficit for the fiscal year that begins July 1. The council's taxation committee held hearings yesterday on O'Malley's proposed $3.50 monthly tax on traditional and wireless phones and a proposed increase in fees for recording real estate purchases, from 0.55 percent to 1 percent.

Area billboard companies are speaking out against a proposed tax introduced this week by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. In a hearing before the City Council's taxation committee Thursday, the global billboard firm Clear Channel Outdoor offered to give the city more than $1 million in free advertising if the administration would drop plans for a tax on billboards. If not, the company's local general manager said, the city could face a lawsuit. "Will this legislation stand up to a legal challenge [that could]

Hoping to win over opponents of a city tax district designed to raise money for attracting tourists and conventions, the Greater Baltimore Committee proposed yesterday shrinking the district while excluding stores and bars that serve little food.But the business group's attempt to forge a compromise failed to sway opponents, including two key state legislators and the Restaurant Association of Maryland.The GBC's move, which came at a meeting in Annapolis with state senators representing Baltimore, amounted to a last-ditch attempt to win passage of a state bill that would allow the city to create a new tourism district.

The Baltimore Homeowners Coalition is using radio advertisements to criticize a city tax break for new hotels.The taxpayers group said the measure will open the door for casino gambling.During the next week, the City Council is expected to grant an estimated $75 million property tax break over 25 years to developers of the Wyndham hotel being built at President and Fleet streets in Inner Harbor East.The homeowners group contends that state law permitting the tax break also would allow the Wyndham hotel's owners, including chief partner H&S Bakery mogul John Paterakis Sr., to add casino gambling if the state ban is lifted.

IT MAY BE September, but June is busting out all over. The city has counted the taxes collected for the last month of the past fiscal year and discovered several records were broken. Property tax collections for June reached $9.6 million, compared to $2.3 million for June 1996. Personal property tax revenue was $3.3 million, compared to $527,000 for June 1996. Penalties and interest reached $2.6 million, compared to $580,000 in June 1996.But it doesn't stop there. Income tax revenue was $19.3 million, compared to $15.6 million in June 1996.

For the second time in two months, an effort to create a new city tax district to raise money to attract conventions and tourists has failed.The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Larry Young, a Baltimore Democrat, would have enabled the city to create an independent authority empowered to collect taxes and other fees from businesses to raise money for the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association.But Mr. Young's measure died yesterday without a vote when the city's Senate delegation decided against acting on it during the delegation's last scheduled meeting of this General Assembly session.

THERE ARE a number of reasons for Baltimore's financial fix, chief among them the stagnation of the tax base because of the loss of population and the city's failure to adequately control costs and services. But certainly a contributing factor are the incremental -- and ill-advised -- property tax cuts enacted over the past 12 years. Four times since 1989, the city has cut the property tax, then as now the highest by far in the state. The sum total of the four cuts: 3 percent. That's 3 percent -- not nearly enough to make much of a difference to any individual taxpayer or affect the direction of the city but cumulatively more than enough to make a good deal of difference to the city's budget.

Seeking to provide relief to overburdened Baltimore homeowners, the City Council gave preliminary approval last night to a nickel cut in the city's property tax rate.The council's action would lower the Baltimore property tax rate -- the highest by far in the state -- from $5.90 to $5.85 per $100 of assessed value.A homeowner with an assessed value of $40,000 -- the city average -- would pay $20 less a year.The final vote on the property tax cut is scheduled for Monday's council meeting, the last one before summer recess.

I smiled when I read Susan Reimer 's column about locking one's car doors to prevent thieves from stealing valuables from inside ("Hey Annapolis car owners: Lock it up!" March 7). It seemed so small-town 1950s America, so different from the reality of people who have to park their cars in Baltimore, where locking your car door is completely irrelevant. Here, thieves will smash your side windows and grab your personal items - even out of the glove box, where they know you've stashed your GPS - in less time than it takes to open an unlocked door.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's suggestion that she might one day seek to raise taxes on restaurant meals in Baltimore City may be the worst idea regarding affordable dining since Marie Antoinette's injunction "then let them eat cake" ("Health costs too high, mayor says," Feb. 21). Virtually no one likes to pay tax on top of the cost of a meal in a restaurant. Price is almost always a factor for diners eating out. Because there are roughly an equal number of fine dining establishments in Baltimore City and Baltimore County, why not dine where one can save a few bucks for a comparable meal?

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake says she plans to introduce a "bold set of major reforms" at her annual "State of the City" speech Monday, less than a week after her press office released a consultant's report that painted a dire picture of future city finances. The speech is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. in the Du Burns Council Chamber on the fourth floor of City Hall. Last week's report by Philadelphia-based Public Financial Management Inc. concluded that Baltimore is facing a structural deficit of nearly $750 million over the next 10 years.

The organizers of last year's Baltimore Grand Prix made their final payment on their overdue city tax bill this week, the state comptroller's office said Thursday. The payment comes as the city prepares for this year's three-day open-wheel racing festival from Aug. 31 to Sept. 2, which is being organized by a new group of local investors and racing promoters. Baltimore Racing Development put on the inaugural IndyCar racing festival over Labor Day weekend last year. City officials expressed confidence in the racing group in the lead-up to the race, but soon afterward acknowledged that the group had fallen behind in hundreds of thousands of dollars of payments to the city and state.

Baltimore police have arrested two women and three men accused of posing as city tax collectors and violently robbing elderly people in their homes. Tierra McCoy and Vaneka Powers, both of Baltimore, have been charged with robbery, conspiracy and attempted extortion, said Sgt. Sarah Connolly, the lead detective on the case. McCoy is being held on $1 million bail, and Powers has been denied bail, Connolly said. Brothers Christopher Pasco and James Pasco and Michael Fields , who are accused of stealing the money from the victims' homes, have also been charged with robbery.

Baltimore police continued to warn against a scam targeting the elderly for robberies, saying new incidents were reported Saturday. In one incident, police said, a 94-year-old woman in Locust Point was assaulted and robbed of $1,000 after falling for the scam. In another, a 79-year-old man in Greektown was injured and also lost $1,000, police said. The scam begins with a woman claiming to be a city tax official calling the victims and telling them they have outstanding Baltimore bills, authorities said.

A property tax credit meant to lure new residents to Baltimore and spur development in impoverished neighborhoods instead rewards current city dwellers who inhabit booming parts of the city, according to a report issued by the city's Finance Department. In the past nine months, 75 percent of the applications for the program, called the Newly Constructed Dwelling Tax Credit, came from 10 neighborhoods, according to the finance data. Forty percent of the credits went to households earning more than $100,000 a year.

Nine cigar and wholesale tobacco companies in Maryland sued Baltimore yesterday to block a new cigar tax from taking effect July 1.The suit challenges legislation passed by City Council in December that will impose a levy of 18 cents to 36 cents on each cigar sold by wholesale tobacco dealers in the city.The bill originally targeted tobacco shops and pipe and chewing tobacco. Those businesses were cut from the measure after owners complained that the tax would wipe them out.A provision in the city law repeals the cigar tax when a 30-cents-a-pack increase in the state's cigarette tax -- now 36 cents a pack -- kicks in next year.

After months of planning, a group led by gambling giant Caesars Entertainment Corp. is expected to get the green light Tuesday to build a 3,750 slot-machine casino ringed with restaurants a few blocks from M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore. Maryland's slots location commission - which has been considering an application by CBAC Gaming since September - is scheduled to vote on the plan when it meets Tuesday. The Las Vegas-based gambling company has teamed up with a number of local partners, including Baltimore financier and philanthropist Eddie C. Brown.

Baltimore City's belated effort to collect full-rate property taxes on unsold but move-in-ready condo units highlights how much reliance the city places on property owners to shoulder, among other things, the costs of infrastructure and public safety services ("Condos' tax bills see big increases," July 16). No doubt these experienced developers had budgeted for these taxes and were wondering just how long the heavily discounted undeveloped-property-tax-rate windfall would last. Does an extra step need to be added to the new property development process to highlight that bright line?