Taxation Committee

When Philadelphia-based Resources America Inc. sold the 30-story Alex. Brown Building in downtown Baltimore to a Miami firm last year, they structured the deal in a way that saved them an estimated $2.4 million in city and state transfer and recordation taxes. In 2002, the Rouse Co. used the same legal method to sell 11 shopping centers in Columbia to a New York company, depriving Howard County and Maryland of an estimated $2 million in tax revenues. Most big-ticket developers don't exchange real estate in the same way that homeowners do. Instead of buying property, they acquire ownership of a limited-liability company whose only major asset is property.

Members of the Maryland General Assembly demanded answers from officials of two state departments yesterday about the debt owed by the partly closed Columbus Center in Baltimore.The center's $7.5 million debt includes $2.5 million to NationsBank, $2.3 million to the city, $1 million to the University of Maryland and $1.2 million to vendors."The Columbus Center is named appropriately," said state Sen. Robert R. Neall, an Anne Arundel Republican. "Christopher Columbus didn't know where he was going when he left, or where he was when he got there, and he did it all on Queen Isabella's money."

Elderly nuns made the pilgrimage. So did teen-age figure skaters. Music fans who are passionate about Mozart showed up. So did animal lovers who worry about hurt raccoons.All day Saturday and for six hours yesterday, hundreds of people from all walks of life lined up inside the Maryland Senate building the way petitioners might once have gathered outside a medieval castle.In the gloomy corridor, they waited patiently for a six-minute chance to appeal to a Senate panel for the same blessing: Money for their causes.

Key committees in the Maryland Senate and House of Delegates failed to agree yesterday on a major provision of the Baltimore City schools deal -- money for the rest of the state.Two committees in the House -- Appropriations and Ways and Means -- indefinitely postponed a scheduled vote on the bill because leaders could not muster support for it without including school aid to other jurisdictions that they believe is unaffordable.A House plan proposed Monday included an additional $26.8 million for education aid next year to the state's 23 counties.

Gov. Parris N. Glendening has approved the nomination of Robert R. Neall to fill the state Senate seat vacant since John A. Cade's death last month.The governor's endorsement was a formality after the Anne Arundel Republican Central Committee's selection of Neall last week.The full committee voted 10-3 to pick the former three-term state legislator and Anne Arundel County executive for the $29,700-a-year post.Neall, 48, will be sworn in Tuesday at a State House ceremony in Annapolis.He also will assume Cade's assignment on the influential Budget and Taxation Committee when the General Assembly convenes next month.

Attempting to soften the blow of his decision to kill a monthly subsidy program for the disabled poor, Gov. Parris N. Glendening yesterday asked the General Assembly to appropriate nearly $20 million to help former recipients find shelter, obtain medical care or receive federal assistance.The governor introduced a $64.5 million supplement to his original $14.5 billion budget, which lawmakers had pared to $14.3 billion earlier in the session, in part by cutting several spending initiatives that were priorities for Mr. Glendening.

If anyone knows what Sen. John A. Cade is really up to, they aren't saying -- including the Anne Arundel County Republican himself.Just months after his uncontested re-election bid for the Maryland Senate, Mr. Cade is throwing himself a big-ticket, bipartisan testimonial for "30 years of public service."His fund-raising target of $150,000 would be a pretty good start on a campaign treasury for a 1998 statewide bid. The question is what he's running for. Governor? Comptroller?"I think it's too early to do anything other than speculate," Mr. Cade said.

Despite Senate opposition, Maryland House leaders said yesterday they will push for a cigarette tax increase this year as a way of financing new school construction, an increase in welfare benefits and an assortment of other programs and projects.House Appropriations Committee Chairman Howard P. Rawlings said committee leaders, with the backing of House Speaker Casper R. Taylor Jr., have agreed to push for a 12 1/2 -cents-a-pack increase in the cigarette tax.That is half the 25-cents-a-pack increase Gov. William Donald Schaefer has requested, but would still raise about $40 million in revenue by increasing Maryland's 36-cents-a-pack tax to 48 1/2 cents.

When Maryland's newly elected General Assembly convenes in Annapolis in January, many familiar faces will be missing. Montgomery County Sen. Laurence Levitan, the powerful chair-holder of the Budget and Taxation Committee, fell victim to the Republican steamroller. So did another veteran, Baltimore County Del. Kenneth H. Masters, the House majority leader.In Prince George's County, retirement removed three prominent Democrats. Sen. Thomas P. O'Reilly has been heading the Finance Committee; Delegates Gary P. Alexander and Timothy F. Maloney have been players on major committees.

With surprisingly little opposition, the $150 million plan to expand the Baltimore Convention Center yesterday won the approval of the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee.Last week the vote count in the committee was considered too close to call. But the final tally, 11-2, had only two senators from Montgomery County voting against the project, which would more than double the size of the 14-year-old building.In passing the bill, the Senate panel amended the measure already approved by the House.

Now that Maryland has turned up its tax rates a couple more watts, big and bright as neon, is it too much to ask the state to stop taking even more of our money under cover of darkness? We pay Maryland in multiple ways beyond the sticker price. One of the biggest offenders will be on display today before the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee - the extortionate interest the state collects on late taxes. You might think a legislature with a history of outrage over private-sector usury would be embarrassed by its own resemblance to Tony Soprano.

Stung by public backlash, a growing number of lawmakers are considering the repeal of a new law requiring that all Maryland homeowners apply for a tax credit they previously had received automatically. A bill heard yesterday by the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee would restore the automatic protection homeowners have had from being taxed for the full value of their homes when property assessments rise rapidly. Last year, the General Assembly unanimously approved the new law, which requires that all homeowners apply for the Homestead Tax Credit.

When Philadelphia-based Resources America Inc. sold the 30-story Alex. Brown Building in downtown Baltimore to a Miami firm last year, they structured the deal in a way that saved them an estimated $2.4 million in city and state transfer and recordation taxes. In 2002, the Rouse Co. used the same legal method to sell 11 shopping centers in Columbia to a New York company, depriving Howard County and Maryland of an estimated $2 million in tax revenues. Most big-ticket developers don't exchange real estate in the same way that homeowners do. Instead of buying property, they acquire ownership of a limited-liability company whose only major asset is property.

Oversight of privately run group homes for Maryland's troubled children, a responsibility now divided among several state agencies, should be consolidated, a growing number of lawmakers say. "We have to move everything into a single agency," said Sen. Ulysses Currie, a Prince George's County Democrat and chairman of the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee, which is to hold the first of three hearings on the topic today. Three departments - Human Resources, Health & Mental Hygiene, and Juvenile Services - license and monitor their own sets of group homes.

Both houses adopt drug discount for uninsured residents About 40,000 uninsured Marylanders would receive lower cost prescription drugs under legislation unanimously adopted by the House and Senate. The Senate gave approval this week to the plan that would allow individuals earning up to $19,140 a year or a family of four making $38,700 to buy drugs at the Medicaid price, which is lower than retail. The bills (SB 728 and HB 1143) require the state health department to seek a waiver from the federal government that would allow the program.

Baltimore's Board of Estimates told the City Council yesterday to reject a pending bill aimed at reducing a $20 annual fee charged for residential burglar alarms. The council's taxation committee is scheduled to decide today whether to heed the board's advice by voting to kill the bill, or to send it to the full council for consideration. "I'm hoping that we move it along," said Councilwoman Helen L. Holton, who introduced the proposal. "If the full council passes it, it's then up to the mayor, who'll either take the recommendation of the council or veto it."

Pro-gambling lawmakers scrambled yesterday to assemble a significant tax package that could win approval from Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and free the administration's slots bill for a long-sought vote in the House of Delegates. House Democrats insisted that no vote would come on legalizing slot-machine gambling until Ehrlich agrees to at least $500 million in new revenues. "The House position is: No taxes, no slots," said Del. Sheila E. Hixson, a Montgomery County Democrat and chairwoman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Today's highlights 8:30 a.m.Senate Budget and Taxation Committee, briefing on the governor's supplemental budget, 3 West Miller Senate Office Building. 8 p.m.Senate meets, Senate chamber. 8 p.m.House of Delegates meets, House chamber.

Today's highlights 2 p.m. Senate Budget and Taxation Committee, fiscal briefing by the Maryland Association of Counties, 3 West Miller Senate Office Building. 8 p.m. Senate meets, Senate chamber. 8 p.m. House of Delegates meets, House chamber.

Frustrated by lawmakers' recent suggestions that Morgan State University has received its fair share of state capital funding, the school's president yesterday invited the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee to campus to show that many needs remain unmet. All but a few members of the committee - which helps approve funding for Maryland's public colleges - went on the two-hour bus tour of the Northeast Baltimore campus, led by President Earl S. Richardson. Richardson showed them new buildings constructed with state support - including the new arts center and engineering complex - and buildings that he said badly need to be replaced or renovated.