Earlier this week, the Maryland Chamber of Commerce encouraged two key committees to pass legislation to moderate the onerous corporate reporting requirements passed during the November 2007 special session.

During the special session, the Maryland General Assembly passed legislation creating the Maryland Business Tax Reform Commission. The Commission will review and evaluate the state’s current business tax structure and make recommendations for changes. Policies to be studied include mandatory unitary combined reporting, gross receipts taxes, value added taxes, alternative minimum taxes, and more.

While the Maryland Chamber was pleased the study arose as an alternative to mandatory unitary combined reporting, the legislation went beyond what the government needs to do further analysis. As part of the study, the legislation imposes extensive new reporting requirements on corporations. No other state imposes reporting requirements that are this extensive.

Legislation, SB 444 and HB 664, has been introduced by Sen. Nancy King (D-Dist. 39) and Del. Kumar Barve (D. Dist. 17) to alleviate some of the business community’s concerns about the reporting requirements, while still enabling the commission to collect the necessary data to complete its study. The Maryland Chamber strongly supports this legislation, and we thank Sen. King and Del. Barve for their leadership.

“This legislation retains the collection of information necessary for the Comptroller’s Office to fulfill the goal of calculating fiscal estimates for the Commission’s study, while reducing the most onerous and unnecessary data requirements,” said Karen Syrylo, CPA, the Maryland Chamber’s State Taxation Consultant.

If you want to learn more about the Chamber’s efforts, contact Karen Syrylo, CPA at ksyrylo@mdchamber.org. For more information and to encourage your legislators to support this legislation, click here.