Tax Benefits

WASHINGTON -- Houses are selling again.One good month -- February -- does not a rebound make in a market strewn with sputters and false starts.But the 9.3 percent increase in the sale of existing houses from January to February was the largest monthly increase in nine years, according to new figures from the National Association of Realtors. Not since the pre-recession month of January 1989 have as many houses sold in a month.If the market continues to spring back, the reverberations promise to stem the erosion in the net worth of homeowning families and the tax base that supports schools and local government.

WASHINGTON - President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and their Democratic challenger, Sen. John Kerry, all benefited from the tax cuts enacted by Congress last year, according to their 2003 returns, which were released yesterday. At the same time, Cheney and his wife were penalized by the Alternative Minimum Tax, a ubiquitous provision of the tax code that increasingly affects middle-class taxpayers and cost them an extra $47,198. Bush paid $227,490 on his taxable income of $727,083 for 2003, $65,084 less than he paid in 2002.

In the tough years of the early 1990s, the states raised taxes that hit the poor harder than the affluent. Now that the booming economy has made the states flush with money, they are cutting taxes -- for the affluent.Sales and excise taxes, which fall more heavily on people at low income levels, were raised $11.7 billion from 1990 through 1993, data from the National Conference of State Legislatures show. These taxes have been cut by $200 million, or less than 2 percent of the amount of the increase, since 1994.

Rising home values have diminished a state property tax credit for some low-income homeowners, and state lawmakers are considering a plan to change that. Del. John R. Leopold, a Pasadena Republican, has proposed changing the way the state computes property tax credits for homeowners who meet certain income requirements. The current state program offers to income-eligible households a tax break on up to $150,000 of their home's value. But that credit has been wiped out in many cases by the recent rise in home values, Leopold says.

Stone Hill, a Baltimore neighborhood of small stone houses built in 1845 for textile-mill workers, is getting some attention these days. "It's a kind of an honor for a community," said Norma Theo Pinette, a resident of Stone Hill, a section of Hampden. "We share a look and a love of our history so that's why we did it." By year's end, Stone Hill will be listed on the National Register of Historic Places, a kind of honorary society run by the National Park Service for properties that are historically and culturally significant.

House Republican leader Anthony J. O'Donnell wants to strip all but the state's two top officials of their drivers, calling the benefit a "fat-cat" service that should be eliminated in harsh budget times. "Cities are hurting," O'Donnell said. "Families can't pay bills. Small-business owners are going bankrupt. It is about how we spend resources and how the elected political classes in Maryland service themselves." State troopers provide security - including driving - for the attorney general, the comptroller, the treasurer, the House speaker and the Senate president.

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is considering a tax on workers' health benefits to finance medical coverage for more than 30 million uninsured Americans, Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan says.The approach, which Sullivan refers to as a "tax cap," would make employer-paid health benefits above a certain dollar amount subject to tax as personal income."We are looking at a number of strategies, such as a 'tax cap' on employer-provided health care to provide funds for those who don't have [insurance]

As an event planner in Northern Virginia, Meghan Noone ached to return to school. The 2000 graduate of Washington College had been in the job market for a couple of years, and the further "away I got from college, the more I knew I wanted to go back." Yet graduate school was a financial pipe dream. Then Noone began looking for a new job. And she learned that the Johns Hopkins University covers up to $5,250 in tuition each year for full-time employees who take classes at one of the university's academic divisions.

WASHINGTON - Despite a personal lobbying drive by President Bush, Congress failed last night to agree on an economic recovery bill whose prospects for passage this year now seem dim. With lawmakers preparing to recess as early as today, there is little time left to resolve the two sides' differences over the legislation, which is intended to revive the economy and help laid-off workers. Bush and congressional Republicans joined with a handful of centrist Democrats to craft a measure that the House was expected to approve early this morning.

There are many ways to fight truancy and poor school attendance, but one that is increasingly overlooked in this era of mandated testing is to make schools places where children want to be. If we want students to come to school, we need to provide the kinds of things they really enjoy, including sports, art, music, outdoor time, and clubs and programs that keep them safe and busy. Unfortunately, instead of such "carrots," Maryland has been focused on "sticks," and proposed legislation would push the state further in that direction.