Comptroller S Office

Cracking down on state tax evaders ought to be a top priority, particularly when Maryland is facing a $1.7 billion budget deficit. After all, every dollar collected from an unpaid tax bill is a dollar less in new taxes or budget cuts. So Comptroller Peter Franchot's recent announcement that his office could clear as much as $200 million within the next four years - if he can expand his staff, pay them a bit more, and upgrade technology - deserves serious consideration. So why is the O'Malley administration acting so cool to the idea?

The right-hand man to legendary Maryland Comptroller Louis L. Goldstein is leaving his state post to become chief of staff for Anne Arundel County Executive Janet S. Owens.Marvin A. Bond, 49, will assume the job March 4, bringing what political observers say is enviable expertise in management, a Rolodex that reads like a Who's Who of Maryland politics, intimate knowledge of fiscal matters and experience in dealing with the public.Owens, a Democrat, began courting Bond moments after her November victory.

JOAN M. PRATT, who was elected city comptroller in 1995, is The Sun's Democratic nominee for City Hall's No. 3 leadership position in the Sept. 14 primary.Her token opponent is Melvin J. Brechin, a construction superintendent who has no compelling agenda or realistic chance for an election upset.Has Ms. Pratt been a good city comptroller?That's a difficult question to answer, not because Ms. Pratt lacks substance but because she is competing with the images of the past.Unlike the late Hyman Pressman, a shameless self-promoter who created an impression as a public watchdog, she is no showboat.

The Maryland comptroller's office is proposing a change in state tax regulations that would save Bethesda-based Discovery Communications Inc. -- parent company of the Discovery Channel -- $340,000 a year on its tax bill.Although the measure would apply to other TV or film production companies based in Maryland with similar operations, the biggest beneficiary by far is believed to be Discovery Communications.The company, its chairman, John S. Hendricks, and his wife, Maureen, were among the larger contributors to Gov. Parris N. Glendening's gubernatorial campaign.

WHAT will that wacky Donald Schaefer think of next?As Baltimore's mayor, he amused us by swimming with the seals at the aquarium.As Maryland's governor, he set tongues awagging with his scatological remark about the Eastern Shore.Now as the state's elected comptroller, he wants to turn mild-mannered Annapolis tax-collectors into pit-bull police enforcers.Comptroller William Donald Schaefer has hired his old pal Larry Tolliver to start cracking down on folks who don't pay their state taxes.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court refused yesterday to hear a claim by a former Baltimore official, Ronald A. Brown, that Jacqueline F. McLean set out illegally to purge white men from her office after she became city comptroller in late 1991.McLean was elected comptroller in November 1991 and took office in December. Brown lost his job as administrator of city telephone facilities the next July.Brown contended in a lawsuit that he lost his job because of an affirmative action program that targeted white men. But lower federal courts rejected his claim, saying no evidence linked a reorganization of the comptroller's office -- and Brown's termination -- to the program.

Continuing to broaden the scope of his new job, Maryland Comptroller William Donald Schaefer has invited local officials to bring him their problems.The invitation, sent in a Feb. 17 letter to leaders across the state, was open-ended."

Carroll County officials fear they might be losing revenue from admission and amusement taxes because the state fails to keep tabs on county carnivals, bars and other entertainment establishments.In a meeting yesterday with representatives of State Comptroller William Donald Schaefer, county Comptroller Eugene C. Curfman asked for more oversight of county businesses and events."We're losing revenue," Curfman said. "It's a real problem."The county taxes admission or amusement charges. But if state auditors fail to enforce the taxes, they will not be paid or reported fully, Curfman said.

Taxpayers may get free help with their federal and state income tax returns tomorrow at two Baltimore offices.Internal Revenue Service and Maryland comptroller's office personnel will be in the lobby of the State Office Building in the 300 block of W. Preston St. and in the lobby of the Fallon Federal Building in Hopkins Plaza.The service will be available from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the State Office Building and from 8: 30 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the federal building.More than 200 taxpayers visited the offices when the service was provided Monday, according to state Comptroller Louis L. Goldstein.

Beginning today, the state comptroller's office will open a booth at the state fair in Timonium where people can find out if they are owners of unclaimed money turned over to the state by banks, trusts and other financial institutions.The booth -- open 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. through Sept. 7 -- has three computer terminals and is located in the main exhibition hall at the fairgrounds."It's as simple as lining up and telling us your name," said Marvin Bond, a spokesman for the comptroller's office.

In 1987, Maryland launched its "one and only" tax amnesty holiday for those who hadn't paid their state taxes. Shockingly, in 2001 it happened again, and yesterday Gov. Martin O'Malley and others were in Dundalk touting Maryland's third such effort in 22 years. What do all three events have in common? Here's a clue: It's all in the timing. At the time of each, Maryland was in the throes of an economic downturn, and elected officials desperately needed the cash to help balance a state budget awash in red ink. This year's effort may prove to be the most desperate yet. Unlike in 2001, the General Assembly approved the amnesty last spring without giving the state comptroller's office any money to manage, advertise or market it. And that's one reason why even the legislature's own analysts are assuming it will raise about $10 million compared with nearly four times that amount eight years ago. Tax amnesty is not necessarily a bad policy, at least not in moderation.

State officials are considering a $366 million budget fix that could spare difficult spending cuts by transferring money in an unused reserve fund kept by the Maryland comptroller's office. The fund is maintained for accounting purposes and could go a long way to reducing a $1.9 billion shortfall that Gov. Martin O'Malley and state lawmakers must close to balance the next annual budget. O'Malley, a Democrat, is considering various ways to pare the budget he will submit to the General Assembly that convenes next week.

Bi-monthly Board of Public Works meetings have been sparring grounds for Gov. Martin O'Malley and Comptroller Peter Franchot, but yesterday the sharp-tongued tax collector issued rare kind words for his political rival from Baltimore. "I ... want to salute the governor," Franchot said. The reason for Franchot's decorousness: O'Malley was voting to approve an $87 million software upgrade that the comptroller's office says will yield hundreds of millions of dollars in uncollected taxes.

Authorities raided a corner bar in Southeast Baltimore yesterday and seized three video gaming machines that police said were used for illegal gambling, part of an effort by the Maryland Comptroller's Office to crack down on such devices in taverns and liquor establishments across the state. Baltimore police vice detectives carrying a pry bar and a sledge hammer walked into the Colonial Inn at Eastern Avenue and Washington Street, ordered a handful of patrons to leave and seized the machines and $1,753.

Fortunately for Baltimore's anti-smoking efforts, the concept of legal pre-emption just got pre-empted by the state comptroller. At issue was whether the city - or any other local government, for that matter - can restrict the sale of little cigars or "blunts" to packs of five or more. The goal of Mayor Sheila Dixon's proposal is to help keep them out of the hands of youngsters who tend to buy them individually. Last week, a lawyer in Comptroller Peter Franchot's office wrote a letter warning that the concept didn't pass legal muster.

State prosecutors have subpoenaed records from the Maryland comptroller's office, suggesting that the long-standing investigation into City Hall might involve state taxes. Two people involved in the investigation - Mayor Sheila Dixon's former campaign chairman and the owner of a company that hired her sister - have pleaded guilty to tax charges since the probe began in 2006. Comptroller Peter Franchot's office received the subpoena several weeks ago and has complied with the request, but a spokesman for the office would not provide any details about what the subpoena sought.

Perhaps they should have been tipped off by the fact that the comptroller's office isn't open on the weekends, or that you can't get a tax refund if you don't pay your taxes. Either way, 40 people wanted on criminal warrants trekked to Annapolis on Saturday to claim a phony tax refund and left in handcuffs. In what could be considered the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes of police stings, the Anne Arundel County Sheriff's Office sent letters to 500 people this month, announcing that a computer glitch meant there was a $572.

Cracking down on state tax evaders ought to be a top priority, particularly when Maryland is facing a $1.7 billion budget deficit. After all, every dollar collected from an unpaid tax bill is a dollar less in new taxes or budget cuts. So Comptroller Peter Franchot's recent announcement that his office could clear as much as $200 million within the next four years - if he can expand his staff, pay them a bit more, and upgrade technology - deserves serious consideration. So why is the O'Malley administration acting so cool to the idea?

A Washington County man was arrested yesterday for trying to sell cigarettes over the Internet, a practice that has been illegal in the state since 2005, the Maryland comptroller's office announced. Agents with the comptroller's office found an online ad for the cigarettes and set up a meeting with the suspected seller, James Kevin Morgan. It's the first time someone has been arrested in Maryland by comptroller's agents for trying to sell cigarettes over the Internet, the comptroller's office said.

Treasury to intercept taxes from vendors State and federal contractors have a new reason not to fall behind on their taxes: Their next payment for government work could be garnished. The state has started working with the U.S. Treasury Department to collect back taxes from companies that do business with the government, Comptroller Peter Franchot said yesterday. Under the reciprocal program, the state intercepts federal vendor payments and takes the amount owed in taxes before the rest of the payment is passed on to the company; the federal government does the same with state contract payments to collect federal taxes owed.