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DELEGATE CASE: No. Then they are
altogether different.
DELEGATE MAURER: Then, in effect,
this would close the door to any possible
future interest in giving taxing authority
to elected bodies which are not the basic
governmental unit.
DELEGATE CASE: Absolutely.
DELEGATE MAURER: Thank you.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Carson.
DELEGATE MACDONALD: Delegate
Case, what will be the effect of the farm
tax assessment which is mandated by sec-
tion 8.02 on tax paupers other than
farmers?
DELEGATE CASE: If you are coming
around to the Howse study, Delegate Mac-
donald, we might as well get to it right
now. The effect on any exemption as Mr.
Howse sets out to prove and does so in a
thirty or forty-page document which
merely proves the obvious is, of course,
that other people who are not similarly
assessed are going to pay more in taxes
than the other, than they otherwise would
if the assessments were made completely
uniformly across the board. This, of course,
does not reach the point that we are seek-
ing to make. However, any exemption does
this. The exemption in your county for
scientific equipment, machinery, and so
on, certainly does this. What you are doing-
is that you are trying to make a choice of
values and the choice of values here is that
it is important to maintain our agricul-
tural community just as in Montgomery
County it is important to have science-
oriented industry to come into the county.
A similar point can be made when we
sought to get the Bureau of Standards into
the county, sought to get the Atomic
Energy Commission into the county. This
was a withdrawal of the taxable basis, but
the feeling was that the greater community
good would be served. That is exactly the
same thing you are dealing with here.
DELEGATE MACDONALD: I was not
trying to argue the point. I was just trying
to bring out the effect that it will cost.
DELEGATE CASE: I was not seeking
to argue it either, but I was merely trying
to show you that every time you treat an
assessable piece of property differently
from the norm, the result necessarily has
to be that somebody has got to pick up the
burden. It is a question of distribution.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Macdonald.
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DELEGATE MACDONALD: Will the
farm tax assessment law which is man-
dated by section 8.02 have any effect on
the equalization formula, any effect on the
monies which are distributed by the states
to the various counties in Baltimore City?
DELEGATE CASE: Well, if you mean
will the assessments be brought up to full
cash value, I would think not.
In other words, the —
DELEGATE MACDONALD: Will the
effect be that the people in Baltimore City
will be prejudiced taxwise?
DELEGATE CASE: Well, the word
"prejudice" gives me some difficulty be-
cause I am not sure, quite sure, what you
mean by that. The people in Baltimore
City may indeed have other considerations
that the rural communities do not have.
For example, Baltimore City exempts tools
and machines used in manufacturing from
taxes. This is not true in some counties.
So there is one vis-a-vis another. It is
hard to see how they are prejudiced.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Macdonald.
DELEGATE MACDONALD: Assume
two situations, Delegate Case. If we had
the farm tax assessment law, will Balti-
more City receive the same amount, a less
amount, or more, under the equalization
formula?
DELEGATE CASE: Than when?
DELEGATE MACDONALD: Than if
we do not have the formal tax assessment
law?
DELEGATE CASE: Just a minute.
Of course, these hypotheses have not
been worked out in so many figures. In
my judgment, if all farm land was as-
sessed at one hundred per cent value, this
is what you are suggesting? Is this not
correct?
DELEGATE MACDONALD: No, I am
not suggesting that. I do not understand
that any land —
DELEGATE CASE: Let us say sixty
per cent. You choose a figure and I will
accept it.
DELEGATE MACDONALD: That is
the figure that I understand. Sixty per
cent is the figure that property is assessed
at throughout the State of Maryland, at
least I understand, or at least that is the
goal.
DELEGATE CASE: That is right. If all
property were required to be assessed at
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