OCEAN CITY — The mayors of the Lower Shore’s two most well-known municipalities rallied this week in support of a House bill in the General Assembly that would address the decades-old issue of tax differential.
House Bill 690, called the Property Tax Fairness Act of 2015, would alter the formula by which counties in Maryland pay property tax setoffs to their municipalities for duplicated services and programs. For example, Ocean City provides services such as fire and police protection, ambulance service, recreation and parks and other programs to its municipal taxpayers, who are essentially double-billed for the services in their property taxes to Worcester County.
House Bill 690 is an attempt to address the property tax setoff issue by creating a process by which the cost of duplicated services can be negotiated by the counties and their towns. The bill, if approved, would change certain counties in Maryland, including Worcester and Wicomico, from “may” produce a tax setoff to “shall” produce a tax setoff.
Ocean City Mayor Rick Meehan this week fired off a letter to House Ways and Means Committee Chair Sheila Dixon in support of the proposed Tax Fairness Act of 2015.
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I would expect Jimmy to be all over this - as indicated in the article.
ReplyDeleteMy concern would be over which services are duplicate...and which one of the duplicates is a better deal for the eventual taxpayers.
From a fairness perspective - there should be dialog as to which portions are to be refunded by the tax setoff and which services provided should be eliminated without the tax setoff. For instance, city police writing tickets outside of city limits would be done at the city's own cost without the tax setoff. Additionally, which services can be jointly administered or taken over by one of the two organizations needs to be discussed. There will be an overall revenue reduction at the county level - but with the respective reduction in services provided - there should be the respective reduction in costs also.