In case you missed it, Saturday’s Baltimore Sun featured a letter to the editor from Chamber President and CEO Kathy Snyder about the misleading and incomplete corporate income tax data being used to promote combined reporting. Here is the letter:

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.”

No such disclaimer was included with this year’s report.

Even more troubling is the fact that this year’s report was based on preliminary data for tax year 2005, even though the report’s cover page acknowledges that “tax year 2005 information remains incomplete, as returns for many corporations whose tax year begins after July 1 are not yet due.”

What facts do we know?

We know that Maryland has collected record amounts of corporate income taxes in recent years, with the $820 million received in fiscal year 2006 more than double the receipts from just three years earlier.

We also know that Maryland’s corporate income tax system is consistent with that used by most other states.

The Maryland Chamber of Commerce supports state Comptroller Peter Franchot’s rigorous enforcement of Maryland’s tax laws.

But before we change those laws, let’s base tax policy on facts, not conjecture.

Kathy Snyder
Annapolis
The writer is president and CEO of the Maryland Chamber of Commerce.