A recent study conducted by Ernst and Young for the Council on State Taxation (Cost) seems to belie the conventional wisdom that Maryland is a business-hostile state when it comes to the local tax burden. The study examined the level of all taxes paid by businesses (property tax, sales and excise tax, gross receipts tax, corporate income and franchise tax, unemployment tax, and income tax paid by owners of pass-through entities) and compared the level paid by each of the states and by industry segment over various periods during the past 5 fiscal years.
Among the findings in this study include:
Maryland had the lowest tax-benefit ratio (the measure of the amount of taxes paid by business to the benefits received by business from government - Md. ratio was 0.80 compared to US average of 1.12 when using the assumption that 50% of the spending on education by local jurisdictions benefits business. Even when it was assumed that none of the education spending benefited business, Maryland's tax-benefit ratio of 2.3 was at the bottom of the pack and was significantly lower than the US average of 3.5)
Maryland ranked in the lowest tier of states when ranked on the percentage of state and local business taxes as a share of private sector Gross State Product - the average ratio was 4.7% while Maryland's was 4.2% (states ranged from a low of 3.5% in North Carolina to 14.8% in Alaska).
The increase in business taxes imposed by state and local governments over the period Fy 2005 - FY 2009 in Maryland was second lowest in the country (17.5% compared to a national average of 46.7%)
2 comments:
Our SUTA (State Unemployment Taxes) for our employees has gone from $800 to $5000!
How does the State think you can hire new employee's when you now can't afford to keep your existing ones?
What really burns me is we have not let anyone go, we have tried our hardest to keep all our employees working, but yet we are still hit by this tax increase, which might mean layoffs.
Lots of folks going to DE or FL, moving and taking their businesses with them. MD will get the hint one of these days, or maybe not.
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