There has been no action on legislation to authorize each county to establish classes of real and personal property and impose varying rates of taxation on each class (SB 561/HB 676). Defeating this legislation is a Maryland Chamber priority.

A minority of states authorize local government to impose differential tax rates on varying classes of property. Such laws always result in local government imposing discriminatory and burdensome levels of taxation on business property, sometimes at levels two to three times the level for residential property.

Since at least 1929, state law has required counties to impose one rate of taxation on all property. The only exceptions to this longstanding policy occurred in 1975, when tax differentials for municipal areas were authorized, and in 2000, when a separate rate of tax was authorized for business personal property as part of the conversion to full value real property assessments.

Maryland businesses will already pay approximately $760 million of the $1.4 billion in new taxes enacted during the 2007 special session. With economic indicators suggesting a possible recession, the last thing businesses need is even higher levels of property taxes.