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ance simply because you are not prepared
in the face of this assembly to face up to
the hard fact that in fact your position is
there should be no farm land exemption?
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Hanson.
DELEGATE HANSON: No, my position
is that even though it is difficult to meet
this problem, that there are valid reasons
for obtaining a different classification for
assessment for farm land if it is possible
to identify bona fide farmers and give them
a tax break and that there are other classi-
fication systems for the classification of
property for taxation which I favor, not,
correction, including agriculture but not
limited to agriculture and although I favor
some of those perhaps even more than ag-
riculture, I am opposed to mandating any
of them in the constitution.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Adkins.
DELEGATE ADKINS: May I ask you,
Delegate Hanson, if you believe it is pos-
sible under the present proposed committee
report to write a statute which would cure
the abuses about which you and many other
delegates are concerned in connection with
this farm land exemption?
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Hanson.
DELEGATE HANSON: I think it is
more possible for the legislature to write
such a law curing the abuses under the
section as I would amend it than I think
it is possible for them to do it under the
section as it now stands which contains the
mandatory phrase and contains the phrase
"agricultural uses" which I think refuzzed
something the first section had unfuzzed.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Adkins.
DELEGATE ADKINS: At the risk of
getting the answer I fully expect, may I
repeat my question.
Do you think it impossible to do that
under the language of the committee report?
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Hanson.
DELEGATE HANSON: I am not
certain.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Rosenstock.
DELEGATE ROSENSTOCK: Mr. Chair-
man, fellow delegates, I rise to oppose this
amendment.
Since college, I have been operating the
family farm. Today we pay twenty-five
percent of our gross income to pay state
and county taxes, the highest value of land
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for purpose of assessment is $150.00 an
acre down to waste land, the bed of the
Monocacy River of $25 an acre.
I would like to know what apartment
houses in Montgomery County pay 25 per-
cent of their gross income for taxes in
that county.
We are having a difficult time in our
county with the speculators from Washing-
ton and Montgomery County selling their
properties there at inflated prices and buy-
ing up farms in our county to replace them
without any tax problem because it is
purely in a great many cases the sale of
the land was caused by condemnation or
threat of condemnation. They have been
coming up and buying farmland in place
of that which is a replacement without any
federal taxes at this time and paying
$2,000 to $3,000 an acre for it.
Yet we are disturbed that these specu-
lators are being protected presently by the
assessment laws. We agree with our broth-
ers from Montgomery County that the
speculators should not be taken care of
under the guise of bona fide agricultural
operations. Yet, at the same time, should
we destroy the fine agricultural structure
that we have in the State of Maryland in
order to get rid of, let's say, 500 specula-
tors from Washington and the District of
Columbia?
THE CHAIRMAN: Does any other dele-
gate desire to speak in favor of the
amendment?
Delegate Beatrice Miller.
DELEGATE B. MILLER: I would give
you that no one here would deny aid and
encouragement to the farmer. I would also
say that less people are against the farmers
than are against sin, if you look at last
night's vote on lottery. I would point out
further, it does not surprise me a consti-
tutional question as aid to the farmer,
people in this State voted overwhelmingly
in favor of any type of amendment that
would seem to aid the farmers.
However, three percent of Maryland's
work force today are farmers. This is a
small group, and while we all want to help
them, I would say putting such a provision
into the constitution makes a very attrac-
tive bid to speculators to lobby in the legis-
lature similar to the kind of lobby activity
they carried on before the Committee and
would seem to have overwhelmed the Com-
mittee and remove from the legislature any
initiative to look for new sources and new
forms of aid for the farmers. It may very
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