Tax Year

I've received a letter from my bank telling me that I must begin to withdraw my IRA. I am a person who was born on July 26th, 1932. I'm still employed; I work for myself as a real estate appraiser; I am constantly at work . . . I say I won't be 70 until July 26th of 2003, and 70 1/2 would be later. It is prudent to be thinking about this, said Marvin R. Rotenberg, national director of retirement services at Fleet Bank's Private Clients group, and a widely regarded authority on IRAs and other retirement plans.

Easy come, easy go. That's the attitude toward tax refunds from many Americans who spend the money before they receive it. Because of recent tax cuts, the average check this year should be around $2,300, up more than $300 from last year. That's not chump change, and you'd be wise to do something other than blow it on consumer electronics. But first, consider revising your withholding at work so you will receive a smaller refund next tax year. You've been giving the government a free loan for the entire time it kept your money.

Incomplete data discredit tax report A recent report from the state comptroller's office reviewed tax payments by the state's largest corporations ("Taxes avoided by many Md. firms," July 24). But the report is misleading because it lacks important disclaimers and attempts to draw conclusions based on data from an incomplete tax year. When the state comptroller's office similarly divulged the names and tax information of Maryland businesses in 2004 and 2005 for the 2001-2003 tax years, the office stated in cover letters to those reports that it was unable to match related corporate entities from their data system and, therefore, "this information most likely does not provide a full picture of the corporate income taxes paid by many `businesses' as they are commonly perceived."

TODAY WE open the April notebook:April historically has been the fourth- strongest Wall Street month, stocks rising an average 1.2 percent over 45 years."

Howard County residents would see no property tax increase this year, but they could pay a higher fire tax under an $899 million budget proposal unveiled Friday by County Executive Ken Ulman. General fund spending, which represents money raised through local taxes and fees, would increase less than 3 percent. "It is really a maintenance budget," Ulman said of the spending plan that, if approved by the County Council, would take effect July 1. A state budget impasse has left state aid up in the air and the question of who will pay teacher pension costs unresolved, but Ulman said his plan is based on a deal made but not passed before time ran out on this year's General Assembly session.

Call it a hidden facet of the tax cut bill that House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Republican of Georgia, has labeled the "crown jewel" in the GOP's "Contract with America."At hearings before the House Ways and Means Committee in late January, a parade of top executives from oil, paper, chemical and steel companies testified that tax relief proposed in the contract didn't go far enough. What would really help their industries, they said, was a rollback of the corporate alternative minimum tax (AMT)

There has been much hue and cry in recent days about the General Assembly approving a "rain tax" this year that is punitive, anti-commerce and unnecessary. What's truly remarkable about these protestations is how none of the underlying claims are true. Rather, this may be a lesson in the perils of approving a policy at the state level but leaving the business of carrying it out to local government. It's far easier for county elected leaders to point a finger at Annapolis than to actually educate themselves on an issue - let alone try to explain why a tax is so clearly in their constituents' self-interest.

Baltimore County residents: Feel free to get nosy about your neighbors' property taxes. A new online database from The Baltimore Sun allows users to find the assessed value and the amount of tax paid for any Baltimore County home or commercial property . The database contains numbers from the tax year that ended June 30, 2012, and gives users multiple search options. In addition to looking up a property by address, users can search by the property owner's name, the assessed value, the tax amount or the credit amount.

Tens of thousands of Maryland homeowners who haven't already applied for the Homestead Property Tax Credit have until the end of the year to do so or lose the often-valuable break. The deadline was set so long ago - 2007 - that some residents might not remember if they applied. State assessors, hoping to cut down on anxious calls, launched an online feature Monday that notes whether a property's application is in and processed. "We get such tremendous volume of calls, and one of the unfortunate things is, when people do call … they sometimes get a busy signal," said Robert E. Young, director of the state Department of Assessments and Taxation.

When Councilman Carl G. "Dutch" Holland was elected last fall, veteran council members told him to wait until May. Then, he'd see what a councilman's job was really like."