Tax Relief

For a long time, you had to pay income tax on debt that your mortgage lender forgave. During the height of the housing crisis, the federal government offered a reprieve - it stopped collecting income tax on up to $2 million of forgiven mortgage debt on a primary residence. This tax leniency is expected to expire at the end of the year, and there's some doubt it will be renewed. Maryland will step in with its own relief if the federal tax break disappears. Under legislation signed into law yesterday, Maryland won't collect state income tax on up to $1 million of forgiven mortgage debt for singles, and $2 million for joint filers.

For a long time, you had to pay income tax on debt that your mortgage lender forgave. During the height of the housing crisis, the federal government offered a reprieve - it stopped collecting income tax on up to $2 million of forgiven mortgage debt on a primary residence. This tax leniency is expected to expire at the end of the year, and there's some doubt it will be renewed. Maryland will step in with its own relief if the federal tax break disappears. Under legislation signed into law yesterday, Maryland won't collect state income tax on up to $1 million of forgiven mortgage debt for singles, and $2 million for joint filers.

Y ou have about six weeks left to make moves to cut your tax bill in the spring. Besides the usual tax strategies, such as making charitable donations before year's end, you might be able to take advantage of one of the many temporary tax breaks Congress created to stimulate the economy. One of them, the popular first-time homebuyer credit, was recently extended so you have more time to get it. But it's unclear whether others will survive. Congress isn't expected to pass any major tax legislation before year's end, although it will likely make a short-term fix to the estate tax so it doesn't disappear next year as scheduled.

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.

BOSTON -- Now let us praise Paris Hilton. This is not a phrase I ever expected to fall from my lips or my laptop. The high school dropout and celebutante is the heiress that America loves to ridicule. Nevertheless, I raise a glass to Ms. Hilton, the young and the spoiled, the rich and rhymes-with-rich, after the near-death experience of the estate tax. Ms. Hilton may yet become the unwitting icon who pulls us from the brink of policy madness. The Senate almost permanently eliminated the inheritance tax and the billions it raises every year.

Sixth District congressional candidate Thomas Hattery has spelled out his call for tax relief for middle-class Americans.Hattery is challenging seven-term incumbent Rep. Beverly B. Byron in the March 3 Democratic primary."

The giant federal housing and foreclosure relief legislation now heading for enactment contains a little-noticed - but potentially far-reaching - change in real estate tax policy. It would permit millions of homeowners who do not itemize on their federal tax filings to claim a deduction for at least a portion of their local and state property taxes. Though the House version of the bill set the maximum write-off at $350 a year for single taxpayers and $700 for married joint filers, the Senate's more generous $500 and $1,000 deductions were expected to prevail in the final compromise version.

Owners of real property damaged by last month's Tropical Storm Isabel could be eligible for property tax abatement and refunds. To qualify for property tax relief, all or part of the property must be destroyed or rendered uninhabitable for a substantial period of time. Examples are a destroyed deck or outbuilding that is not repaired or replaced; a finished basement made unusable by flooding; or an entire house that has been structurally damaged by the storm. Where the value of all or part of real property is destroyed by a hurricane, fire or other casualty, the property owner is entitled to ask for the tax assessment to be reduced.

For years, those who inherited a 401(k) from a parent or partner were left with something else: a big tax bill. That's because employers typically cashed out the account, and all at once heirs owed income tax on the money. Only surviving spouses could avoid an immediate tax hit by rolling the money into an individual retirement account. But tax relief is on the way in the new pension law. Beginning next year, children, domestic partners and anyone else who inherits a 401(k) from someone other than a spouse will be able to transfer the money directly into an IRA. They can then take distributions from the IRA based on their life expectancy, which can be many years.

Curtis Howard and his wife don't have a car that would allow them to shop for groceries outside the city. That means they're unlikely to avoid paying Baltimore's tax on beverage bottles and cans anytime soon.Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke and City Council President Mary Pat Clarke have launched separate efforts to have the tax repealed. But Mr. Schmoke's proposal, tied to budget relief from a state takeover of the city Circuit Court system, appears headed for failure."It doesn't look like that is going to happen," state Sen. John A. Pica Jr., sponsor of the takeover measure that would save the city $6 million a year, said yesterday.

Starting in July, Baltimore homeowners can expect to see their tax bills get a little lighter. That's when Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's property tax reduction plan goes into effect, resulting in a 2-cent cut per $100 of assessed value next fiscal year. Under the measure, approved Monday by the City Council, taxes on an owner-occupied home valued at $200,000 will drop by $40 next year. The reduction is scheduled to grow to $400 by 2020, though the continued cuts are contingent on approval each year by the city's Board of Estimates.

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.

Tax rebates and incentives for the "Superblock" project sound innocuous, but let's call these programs what they really are - subsidies funded by the taxpayers of Baltimore. Will the 296 apartments to be built in the Superblock need police and fire protection? Will they need their garbage collected? Will the residents attend school, use a park or drive on a street? If they do, but do not pay taxes to cover the cost, then the rest of the homeowners in Baltimore will be stuck with the tab. While the project's developers enjoy 20 years of tax breaks, the rest of us who are less well-connected at City Hall can expect to suffer crushing property taxes, escalating fees and reduced city services.

If the Obama administration proceeds to electoral doom, blame rests on its surrender to its financiers and campaign organizers: Wall Street and public employee and construction unions. A Democratic administration in control of Congress which for two years left hedge fund managers' "carried interest" untouched while not providing a Civilian Conservation Corps or payroll tax moratorium for young workers to relieve youth unemployment has something wrong with it. Meanwhile, the bizarre Republican schemes for tax relief have in common a determination not to burden "the donor community.

ON THE SITE... City police investigate eight shootings since Friday : A 29-year-old man who was shot in the leg early Monday in Pigtown  was the eighth person shot in Baltimore since Friday afternoon, according to police. Two of the victims died. Rawlings-Blake plans to introduce property tax relief legislation : The mayor plans to use revenue from a planned city slot machine parlor to offset a 20-cent reduction to the city's property tax rate in a bill expected to be introduced at Monday's City Council meeting.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's proposal to reduce the city's property tax rate for homeowners by 20 cents by the year 2020 was introduced Monday to the City Council. The proposal, which is dependent on revenue from the planned slots casino, would gradually lower property tax rates for owner-occupied homes over the next eight years. The city's property tax rate is more than double that of the surrounding counties. "In order for us to grow the city, we need to improve public safety, public schools as well as the property tax rates," Rawlings-Blake said Monday.

Victims of New York financier-swindler Bernard L. Madoff will get tax relief from Uncle Sam, but not as much as some had hoped. The Internal Revenue Service issued guidelines yesterday that will help many of the 4,800 victims of Madoff's $65 billion investment fraud recoup some losses by seeking repayment of up to five years of past taxes. "Beyond the toll in human suffering - as entire life savings and retirements appear to have been wiped out - the Madoff case raises numerous tax and pension implications for the victims," IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman told the Senate Finance Committee.

House Republicans began pressuring their Democratic colleagues in Annapolis yesterday to provide tax relief this year and to make it harder to raise taxes in the future.More than 30 of the 41-member GOP caucus gathered to announce a plan to cut Gov. Parris N. Glendening's budget by more than $330 million to make good on their campaign pledge to slash state income tax revenues by 6 percent.The tax cut, which would take effect next Jan. 1, would save virtually any Maryland family of four $220, regardless of income.

Your Jan. 17 editorial, "Death and farming," misses much of the big picture. If few farm families are taking advantage of a pilot tax program, perhaps it is not because tax relief is not needed. Rather, it may indicate that in many cases the mere deferment (for seven years) of the state's part of a crushing state and federal estate tax burden is of insufficient help to the cash-poor heirs of family farms. A big picture should include that Maryland's estate tax rate of approximately 16 percent is much higher than that of most states (and many states have no inheritance tax)

Just doin' the Google and putting the pieces together, in an attempt to determine Christopher H. Lee's political affiliation (without actually asking the man), and the good guess was Republican. Years ago, after his graduation from the Johns Hopkins University, Mr. Lee wrote speeches for two Republican lawmakers from Ohio, and in 1998, when he started his Highstar Capital investment company, he did so with uber-lobbyist and GOP insider Wayne Berman. Plus, he lives in Ruxton. So that pretty much marks Mr. Lee as a Republican, and probably a mainstream Romney Republican as opposed to the tea party kind of Republican.