Surcharge

When gas prices soar, there's only one remedy the taxi industry can pursue: Wait on local jurisdictions to adjust fare prices. But the wheels of government don't exactly accelerate from zero to 60 in 5 seconds. With the way the price of fuel has soared in recent months, by the time officials respond to one surge, they are trying to catch up to the next one. This week, the Annapolis city council approved a series of taxi surcharges that would go into effect when gas prices hit $3 a gallon, and again when it tops $4. City leaders sought to enact the legislation, which would more rapidly respond to the price fluctuations and keep taxi businesses from stalling out. Anne Arundel County is considering drafting a bill similar in scope, although details are unknown.

WASHINGTON - A Texas oil trader, a South Korean once accused of bribing U.S. congressmen and two other businessmen were charged yesterday with crimes in which they allegedly made millions of dollars in illegal profits by cutting secret deals with Saddam Hussein through the United Nations' oil-for-food program in Iraq. David B. Chalmers Jr., 51, and a business associate, Ludmil Dionissiev, 58, a Bulgarian national, were arrested at their homes in Houston shortly before the Justice Department announced their indictments on charges of paying bribes to the Iraqi government.

UNCLE SAM should be ashamed of himself. The citizens of Maryland, hoping to speed cleanup of the quickly deteriorating Chesapeake Bay, agreed last year through their representatives in Annapolis to pay a special fee for the purpose: a monthly surcharge on water and sewer bills known informally as the "flush tax." Yet the initiative is undermined because federal agencies, which operate some of the biggest polluters in the bay watershed, are balking at paying their share. President Bush should take the advice of Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest and order the Navy, NASA and other deadbeat agencies to pay up before they deal what the Eastern Shore congressman called a "highly detrimental blow to the cooperative spirit of the user-fee initiative."

Rising fuel costs forced Leroy Yegge, who owns Bruno's Pizza in South Baltimore, to reluctantly tack on a 50-cent surcharge to his delivery orders. The trendy Ixia Restaurant in the city's Mount Vernon section is aiming to use ingredients that are not as costly to deliver as it develops its new spring menu. And at Baltimore Blossoms Floral Boutique, owner Rachelle Bland recently raised the price of deliveries beyond her immediate area to $9.95, from $7.95. "I tried hard to stay lower than other places for so long, hoping that gas prices would go down," she said.

Rising fuel costs forced Leroy Yegge, who owns Bruno's Pizza in South Baltimore, to reluctantly tack on a 50-cent surcharge to his delivery orders. The trendy Ixia Restaurant in the city's Mount Vernon section is aiming to use ingredients that are not as costly to deliver as it develops its new spring menu. And at Baltimore Blossoms Floral Boutique, owner Rachelle Bland recently raised the price of deliveries beyond her immediate area to $9.95, from $7.95. "I tried hard to stay lower than other places for so long, hoping that gas prices would go down," she said.

The U.S. Navy is challenging whether it must pay the governor's new "flush tax" at its numerous facilities in Maryland - a move that could prompt all military installations and federal agencies in the state to do the same and create a major funding shortfall for the landmark legislation. The Navy contends that the surcharge, designed to raise about $65 million to pay for upgrades to sewage treatment plants statewide, is indeed a tax and not a user fee, as the Ehrlich administration insists.

Maryland companies must pay $68 per worker next year to subsidize the state's unemployment insurance trust fund -- less than the $93.50 they paid this year and in line with projections, labor officials said yesterday. The 0.8 percent tax surcharge for 2005 is what state officials predicted this summer was needed to bolster the fund that pays benefits to laid-off workers. It is below this year's 1.1 percent that employers are paying. A state task force is working on a long-term solution to the shortfall in an effort to eliminate the fee, which businesses argue is unfair.

A drop in jobless-benefit claims means employers will likely pay a lower tax surcharge next year to bolster Maryland's unemployment insurance trust fund, state officials said yesterday. Thanks to the pickup in the economy, the state is now projecting a 0.8 percent surcharge for 2005, which would cost companies an extra $68 per worker for the year. That's significantly below both the 1.1 percent - or $93.50 per worker - that employers are currently paying and the 1.2 percent the state had expected for 2005.

After a brief hearing that drew no public comment, the Carroll County commissioners approved a plan yesterday to increase by 25 cents the fee that county telephone customers pay for 911 service. The change would raise to 75 cents the monthly charge on all land-line and cellular telephone bills in Carroll County. The increase - expected to generate an additional $345,000 to $350,000 - would offset the cost of operating and maintaining the county's 911 emergency center, public safety officials said.

Senate Democrats plan to bring Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s proposed sewer bill surcharge to the floor of the Senate today in spite of a disagreement with the governor over their plan to apply an equivalent fee to septic systems. Sen. Paula C. Hollinger, chairwoman of the Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee, said yesterday that she plans to move forward with the bill even after the administration disavowed what she considered a tentative accord on the so-called "flush tax."