Tax Base

After more than 10 years of discussion, drafting and revising, the Carroll County commissioners unanimously approved employment campus zoning yesterday, adopting an ordinance that would designate land for business parks and guard industrial parcels against commercial use. The county commissioners said they have laid the groundwork for the creation of high-tech business parks and well-paying jobs. The zoning will help the county increase its industrial land and keep "the talent and potential we have moving through the county now working here instead," said Commissioner Dean L. Minnich.

In his latest salvo against corporate tax dodges, Maryland Comptroller William Donald Schaefer said yesterday that he is pursuing a $130 million income tax claim against WorldCom Inc., the telecommunications giant felled by a huge accounting scandal and now operating under bankruptcy protection. Schaefer, who has already collected about $10 million in back taxes, penalties and interest from other companies operating in the state, filed a claim in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan to recover the money from WorldCom.

Like a teen-ager after a growth spurt, Howard County officials are looking in wonder at their reflection in state assessment figures showing the county's taxable base is now worth more than much larger Baltimore City's. Howard's total value - covering residential and commercial/industrial property - outpaced Baltimore's for the first time in 2001, though Howard's residential base passed the city's in 1998. Baltimore's concentration of businesses and industry kept the city's total tax base larger for three more years, said state assessment officials.

Carroll County's Economic Development Commission has endorsed several proposed zoning changes and a new campus zone that members say would safeguard industrial land from commercial development and bring high-paying jobs to the county. The county's industrial tax base is about 12 percent, the lowest percentage in the metropolitan area. Nearly 60 percent of the county work force commutes daily to jobs outside of Carroll. "We need to employ the work force of Carroll County that leaves here every day," said Sue Chambers, chairwoman of the EDC. John T. "Jack" Lyburn, county director of economic development, said Carroll must reserve its industrial land for companies that can enhance the industrial tax base and provide high-paying jobs.

BUSINESSES, as Ricky said to Lucy, you got some splainin' to do. You keep beefing about taxes, but you contribute less to state and local taxes in Maryland, in percentage terms, than in any other state in the country. You can look it up. Prompted by claims that business doesn't pay its fair share, the Council on State Taxation hired a consultant to analyze business taxes across the nation. The study came out last month. In Maryland, business' share of state and local taxes was 32 percent, the least in any state.

TRAPPE - To Cheryl Lewis and lots of her neighbors in this Eastern Shore town, the developer's proposal sounded like the proverbial offer they couldn't refuse. Trappe, a cluster of about 450 houses alongside busy U.S. 50, could welcome a 900-acre planned community of perhaps 2,000 new houses and a host of commercial properties. Or the town could stand pat, watching as tourist and real estate dollars keep flowing into well-heeled Easton and St. Michaels, or into up-and-coming Cambridge.

Some of Howard's councilmen see great commercial potential along Route 100, the commuter connector between Ellicott City and Interstate 95, envisioning a thoroughfare lined with corporate headquarters, their logos visible from the roadway. At recent work sessions for the county's decennial comprehensive rezoning process, Councilman Christopher J. Merdon suggested they consider commercial zoning for land adjacent to parcels near the Route 103 interchange, an area proposed for commercial zoning.

If Carroll leaders want to attract more high-tech business to the county, they should reduce congestion on major roads, create more broadband Internet access and market Mount Airy as an extension of the Washington area, according to a new study by business and real estate analysts. The study, paid for by a $52,000 state grant, praises the county for its skilled work force, rural setting and highly regarded schools and says Carroll might find its niche as a manufacturing center for high-tech companies based in neighboring counties.

WHILE PARING $208 million from Maryland's budget, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. has illustrated the limits of cutting as a solution to the state's long-term financial problem. The newest round of cuts, announced Wednesday, make it painfully clear that new or higher taxes must be part of the budget-balancing equation. Without more revenue, Maryland faces years of catastrophic deficits - $1.8 billion per year by 2007. Projected tax receipts are expected to be outpaced by built-in spending commitments for public schools, health care for the poor and other needs.

A division of a high-tech company is moving from Anne Arundel County to Carroll County, bringing more than four dozen well-paying jobs and providing a cornerstone for a fledgling technology corridor near Westminster. Carleton Technologies' Pressure Technology Division, which manufactures tanks and other "composite pressure vessels" for the military and the aerospace industry, will close its offices near BWI and reopen in the Carroll County Commerce Center, according to the company's president and Carroll's director of economic development.