Free Republic

FREDERICK, MD - Some people in Maryland will get a surprise when they look at their tax bill. In a special session the Maryland General Assembly approved increasing taxes for people who make more than $100,000 a year and couples who make more than $150,000 a year. Those changes take effect this week. "They will go up for most people anywhere from five to 15-percent, and what they'll also see is that they'll be retroactive. I think Maryland families are suffering under the current economy and really don't need to be sending more and more to the government," said Sen....

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley signed a quarter-billion dollars’ worth of tax increases into law on Tuesday. The move is meant to keep the state’s ever-expanding budget on a path toward growth. “Growth” is the last thing the private-sector economy is going to see in the Free State. According to the latest Labor Department figures, Maryland lost 6,000 jobs in April, the largest such drop in the nation. Unless the General Assembly and the governor begin to rethink their free-spending ways, Maryland soon will be in the fiscal hole like California and Greece. Like a good Democrat, Mr. O'Malley has taken...

Although negotiations over a package of tax increases and a proposed casino collapsed Monday night, the Maryland General Assembly passed a lot of bills this session — 791, to be exact. Of those, 96 percent were passed in the last week, including hundreds in the hours and minutes before midnight on Monday. Here are some highlights from the 90-day session’s last day: STORMWATER FEE The Senate spent much of the session’s waning hours fiercely debating a stormwater fee bill that was on few people’s radar earlier in the session. The bill requires localities to fund projects to reduce polluted runoff...

ANNAPOLIS — The General Assembly adjourned Monday night after a chaotic closing session in which members failed to pass a set of proposed tax increases or a bill to expand gambling in the state. Lawmakers passed a balanced budget and hoped to pass accompanying bills raising income taxes and shifting teacher-pension costs onto counties, but they ran out of time before the assembly’s required midnight adjournment. The House attempted to extend the session by passing a resolution shortly before midnight, but the Senate did not address the measure in time. Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. said he was...

With the Obamacrats in charge of things now, one thing this country does not need is a new idea from a foreign nation on how to raise revenue in the form a brand new tax. Heaven knows that American liberals are practically second-to-none - veritable trendsetters and mold breakers - at attempting to siphon money from the private sector in the name of reinvestment and stimulus.In that spirit, one can only hope that Democrats aren't paying too much attention to the news coming from Down Under reporting that Australia wants to attack its water shortage woes by charging its...

Maryland Begins Taxing Residents for Flushing Monday, December 12, 2005 LA PLATA, Md. The arrival of bills for the state's new "flush tax" is taking some property owners by surprise in Charles County. "I have cauliflower ear," said County Treasurer Jerome Peuler. "I think we've probably received thousands of phone calls because people are not used to getting a bill that looks like a tax bill out of cycle." The new Maryland "flush tax," a $30 fee that generates money for the Chesapeake and Atlantic Coastal Bays Restoration Fund, will be collected for the first time this year. It was...