Revenue

If all goes as planned, sometime this morning a spacecraft will blast off from its launchpad in Cape Canaveral, Fla., and ride a fiery plume of contrails upward through the pre-dawn darkness to begin a two-week journey to the International Space Station and back. But the flight won't be just another NASA resupply mission. Instead, the Falcon 9 rocket and its unmanned Dragon cargo capsule built by Space Exploration Technologies Corporation - SpaceX for short - will be the first commercially owned and operated vehicle ever to rendezvous with the station's orbiting astronauts.

The 15-year real estate tax abatement for the Superblock in West Baltimore raises important policy issues that need to be addressed. Specifically, should the city — and in certain cases, the state — grant economic incentives for real estate developments that 1) create competitive disadvantages for existing property owners and 2) reduce the city's property tax revenues from large-scale commercial developments? From my private-sector perspective, the answer to the question is simple: Granting tax abatements that disadvantage existing taxpaying properties is wrong and will lead to an overall loss of tax revenues for the city.

Four trucks laden with 100 slot machines arrived early Wednesday morning at the nearly completed casino at Arundel Mills mall. For the next two hours, workers wheeled banks of the gleaming new machines, one by one, inside on hand trucks. Installation of the first set of slots moved Maryland Live! Casino, the state's largest, another step closer to its scheduled opening in three months. That's progress for Maryland's lackluster gambling program, which has yet to be fully implemented more than three years after voters approved five slots locations statewide.

After beating back a series of challenges in the House of Delegates, lawmakers are poised to give final approval Wednesday to a plan to raise the state income tax to fund schools, police and Medicaid. The legislation, introduced Monday by Gov. Martin O'Malley and backed by the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate, would subject top-earning Marylanders to the seventh-highest income tax rate in the country, according to the National Tax Foundation. Their rate now ranks 10th. The measure also would raise taxes on some tobacco products and fees on some state transactions.

United Airlines said Monday that January traffic rose, and it collected more revenue from each passenger. United said it collected 9.5 percent to 11.5 percent more for each passenger flown one mile in January compared with January 2009. Throughout last year airlines struggled to raise fares, so any increase in so-called unit revenue should be welcomed by the industry. - Associated Press div.talkforum #creditfooter { display: none; } div.talkforum .feedItemAuthor { display: none; }

Shares of Ciena Corp., a Linthicum-based maker of telecommunications networking equipment, slid 10 percent Monday after the company posted a fiscal first-quarter loss and predicted that revenues in the second quarter would be lower than expected. The company's net loss widened to $79 million this past quarter compared with $53 million a year ago, largely because of integration costs tied to its purchase last year of Nortel's Metro Ethernet Networks division for $769 million. Ciena said it tallied more than $24 million in merger costs in the first quarter.

While Under Armour's core apparel lines drove strong revenue results in the third quarter, the company is preparing to launch even more products, including sneakers, as well as to enter new markets, such as China, company officials said Tuesday while announcing earnings. "We're seeing great success in our two-fold strategy of innovating to drive better performance product with higher prices in our core while expanding our reach beyond our core with new products," President and CEO Kevin Plank told investors during a conference call.

Revenue from the state's two casinos dipped to $12.2 million in November, down from $12.9 million in October, the Maryland Lottery reported Monday. The bigger of the two slots parlors, Hollywood Casino Perryville, brought in $9.1 million last month. On a year-over-year basis, November's revenue jumped nearly 20 percent, up from $7.6 million in November 2010. The Casino at Ocean Downs in Worcester County, which opened in January, generated $3.1 million in November. Almost 50 percent of revenue — which represents sales after winners are paid — goes to the state's Education Trust Fund.

Times Mirror Co. reported these financial figures yesterday:Three months ended 9/29/91.. .. .. .. Revenue.. .. .. ..Net.. .. .. .. ..Share'91.. .. .897,228,000.. ..40,972,000.. .. .. ..0.32'90.. .. 894,980,000.. ..41,865,000.. .. .. ..0.33% change.. .. +0.3.. .. .. .. 2.1.. .. .. .. .. .3.0Nine months ended 9/29/91.. .. .. .. Revenue.. .. .. . Net.. .. .. .. . Share'91.. ..2,641,824,000.. ..94,978,000.. .. .. .0.74'90.. ..2,676,747,000.. .134,863,000.. .. .. ..1.05% change.. .. ..-1.3.. .. .. ..29.

Environmental Elements Corp. announced first-quarter net income yesterday of $221,000, up 6.8 percent from the $207,000 reported for the first quarter of 1998. Earnings per diluted share remained unchanged at 3 cents in the three months that ended June 30.The Baltimore-based provider of air pollution control systems said it had revenue in the quarter of $11.8 million, down 40 percent from $16.5 million posted for the corresponding period a year ago.Ted Verdery, chairman and chief executive officer, said although revenue declined, "the work we are doing has a higher premium for the customer and earns a higher profit."

Over the past year, slots money has injected energy into Maryland horse racing. Revenue from the state's two casinos has bolstered purses, helping attract better horses and create more competitive races. The Preakness also is benefiting. Some of the weekend's undercard stakes races offer larger prizes, while the long-respected Pimlico Special returns with a $300,000 purse after disappearing for three years due to a lack of prize money. It's shaping up to be a good running for the Preakness this year.

The City Council on Monday approved Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's property tax reduction plan, which relies on projected revenue from gambling. “I want to thank Council President Bernard 'Jack' Young and members of the City Council for giving relief to city homeowners,” Rawlings-Blake said in a statement. Banking on income from a future slots location, the plan would reduce Baltimore's property tax rate by 20 cents by 2020 for Baltimore homeowners. According to the mayor's office, the plan would give an owner-occupied home, valued at $200,000, an annual tax reduction of $40 next year.

Baltimore's property tax rate is high (that's one thing that everyone that owns a home or business in the city can agree on) so nothing makes the blood boil quite like news that someone has successfully avoided paying their fair share — except, perhaps, finding out it wasn't a case of avoidance so much as lax enforcement. That's what appears to have happened in the case of some of the city's priciest condos, as recently uncovered by reporter Jamie Smith Hopkins . Baltimore lost out on more than $10 million in property tax revenue over the last several years because some 200 luxury condos were assessed as if they were little more than holes in the ground.

Baltimore MayorStephanie Rawlings-Blakeis asking the City Council to grant generous property tax breaks for the developers of the long-stalled Superblock project on the west side of downtown, calling it a linchpin of her long-term strategy to grow the city's revenue base and increase its population by 10,000 families over the next decade. That may be overstating the impact of any one project, and it is bound to revive a long-simmering debate about the value and wisdom of the city's practice of providing tax incentives to big developers.

Gambling is picking up as Maryland's two casinos reported $16.3 million in slots revenue last month, the largest combined total since the two facilities have been in business. The Maryland Lottery said Thursday that Hollywood Casino Perryville generated $12.3 million in March, while the Casino at Ocean Downs brought in a little more than $4 million. Compared with the same period a year ago, total March revenue is up about 25 percent. And revenue rose 8.4 percent from February, when the two casinos generated $15.1 million.

As competition heats up between Owings Mills developers, the company that plans to build an upscale shopping center featuring a Wegmans store touted the jobs and tax revenue it said its project at the former Solo Cup site would create. The Foundry Row development would support about 3,100 permanent jobs in Baltimore County and generate $4.8 million in annual local tax revenue, according to an economic impact study commissioned by developers Greenberg Gibbons Commercial. The study by economist Anirban Basu of Sage Policy Group is to be released today.

Celera Genomics Group said yesterday that its fiscal third-quarter loss widened to $49.5 million despite increased revenue, largely because of charges. The Rockville-based company reported a per-share loss of 72 cents for the period ended March 31. Revenue was $30.5 million, an increase of more than 30 percent from the $23.4 million reported for the comparable period last year. The results compare with a loss of $29.1 million, or 48 cents a share last year. Excluding one-time charges related to Celera's Paracel business of gene-sorting hardware and software, the loss for the quarter ended March 31 was $28.5 million, or 42 cents a share.

It's bad news/good news/bad news time about the area's top businesses, courtesy of the Washington/Baltimore Regional Association:In 1990, the number of publicly held companies in the region fell slightly, according to a new report from W/BRA. That's the bad news.The good news is that the smaller number of companies -- 161, compared with 163 in 1989 -- generated more revenue in 1990: $179.9 billion, vs. $100.9 billion the year before.But the bad news is that very little of that increase came from existing companies.

Maryland revenues have steadily increased over the last four years, yet Gov.Martin O'Malley's administration continues to bemoan budget shortfalls. Maryland doesn't have a revenue problem; this administration has a spending problem. A spending problem that Governor O'Malley intends to solve by raising taxes. He's also proposing a 6 percent sales tax on gas while prices at the pump are topping $3.75 a gallon. Governor O'Malley, please stop trying to solve Maryland's budget shortfalls by loading the burden onto the backs of Maryland taxpayers.