State Taxes

Eight Maryland businesses approved for $34 million in tax credits for job creation from 2007 to 2010 failed to document their project or startup costs, a legislative audit of the state's economic development agency has found. An audit of the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development released Tuesday also found that the agency had failed to recover a $250,000 investment in a technology company that moved out of state less than a year after getting a loan to create jobs in Maryland.

Comptroller Peter Franchot said Wednesday that he planned to make the process of filing income taxes in Maryland "virtually paperless" by 2014. Franchot said at a meeting of the Board of Public Works, on which he sits, that 70 percent of Maryland taxpayers were expected to files returns electronically this year – double the rate of five years ago. He said electronic filing saved the state $2 per return and reduced paper waste by 26 million pages...

Got a problem? There's an app for that! Unfortunately, solving Maryland's budget deficit isn't that easy. In fact, one proposal set forth this week by Gov.Martin O'Malleyto tax digital goods could impact states and consumers well beyond Maryland's borders. While Maryland has the right to address the taxation of goods, Congress must fix the potential for duplicative state taxation first. Over the last 10 years, the sale of digital goods has grown at lightning speed. According to the CTIA (a trade group representing the wireless telecommunications industry)

While the legislators battle it out over taxes in Annapolis, Marylanders will get a brief respite. From Feb. 18 through the 20 th , Marylanders buying certain Energy Star products can avoid paying the 6 percent state sales tax. Items that qualify for the tax holiday include air conditioners, clothes dryers and washers, furnaces, refrigerators, programmable thermostats. For a full list, check out the comptroller's website . This three-day tax holiday on energy products takes place annually on the weekend of the third Monday in February.

Frustrated by Maryland's high rate of health disparities, state leaders are proposing a new attack - one more commonly associated with economic development. Gov. Martin O'Malley's 2012-2013 budget will include funding to create Health Enterprise Zones, where doctors and community groups in areas with large health disparities, such as Baltimore, could add medical and support services for minorities. Tax credits and other financial incentives would be available to spur interest. The plan is designed to save lives and healthcare dollars, according to Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown, who last summer formed a work group on disparities led by Dr. E. Albert Reece, dean of the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

"Amazing, awesome, incredible" and "I am overjoyed" were among the responses I received to the news that the increase in the alcohol tax enacted this week by the General Assembly will help fund services for people with developmental disabilities. These responses came from families who have languished on the state's waiting list for essential supports for many years. We estimate that more than 500 children and adults with disabilities such as autism, cerebral palsy and Down Syndrome will finally receive the support they desperately need.

Baltimore's biotechnology industry has made strides. Two biotech parks by the Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland now anchor the east and west sides of the city. A few dozen biotech startups have made their home here. But Baltimore's nascent biotech industry doesn't yet have a breakout company — a darling of venture capitalists and Wall Street that has grown past the risky and unprofitable startup phase to achieve a steady stream of revenue and products in the pipeline.

Gov. Martin O'Malley will designate 14 rail stations as the state's initial sites for mixed-use development connected with transit projects, making them eligible for state spending and tax incentives. The governor plans to announce the list of transit-oriented development projects, including seven in metropolitan Baltimore, receiving that legal authorization at a news conference today in Prince George's County. Most of the projects have been publicly discussed as potential sites for mixed-use development, but the governor's action will allow the state Department of Transportation to devote money and staff time to moving them forward, said Chris Patusky, the agency's real estate director.

W hen the current fiscal year ends in June, Maryland's tax collections will likely have dropped 5.2 percent from the previous year, the worst showing on record. Personal income in 2009 is expected to show the lowest growth rate since 1954; unemployment is at its highest level since 1983 and is expected to get worse; and solid economic growth is not expected until 2012 at the least. Believe it or not, that counts as good news, at least in a relative sense. The figures released Wednesday by the Board of Revenue Estimates are about the same as they were in the group's last report, in December, and that one was largely unchanged from September.

The latest state income tax payments to local governments fell $61.8 million year over year, piling new fiscal woes atop budgets already reeling from state cuts, high snow removal costs and earlier revenue declines. The declines in payments from the state to county governments at the end of February put an added $29.4 million burden on Montgomery County, which was already facing a projected $761.5 million shortfall by June 30, according to the Maryland comptroller's office. Prince George's and Charles counties were alone among Maryland's 24 jurisdictions to receive more in the fourth quarter of 2009 than in 2008.