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who thought about these subjects advocated
its passage.
The advocacy took several grounds —
one was that from the purely agricultural
point of view, it was necessary to save the
farmer, the small farmer, the marginal
farmer from the impact of heavy taxes
where his property might be situated or
happen to be situated in a fast-growing area where values were skyrocketing.
It takes no stretch of imagination to
realize that land located in areas such as
Montgomery County or in the southern
regions of Baltimore County or in the
great share of Prince George's County
which are actively farmed, nevertheless
have tremendous value over and above that
for farming, namely the value for sub-
divisions.
The second argument stated in effect that
it was not a question so much of helping a
farmer or farmers but it was the choice of
values. That is to say, it was important to
the people of Maryland to preserve open
space, to preserve areas where you did
not have overnight slums constructed by
developers, that these were things that
were important to the health, welfare, and
safety of the people and as a result of this,
the amendments should pass even in spite
of the fact some people might get an ad-
vantage from this.
Some time later in 1903 or 1964, a case
developed from Montgomery County involv-
ing these two amendments. By this time the
state tax commission, now the department
of assessments and taxation, had devised
a system of rules which tax people call
regulations, which sought to define farms
in terms of whether or not they were ac-
tually farmed, whether or not there were
livestock and many other criteria, and the
purpose of these regulations was to pre-
vent a speculator or investor from buying
up property and perhaps putting a few
goats or a few sheep, we heard about
sheep in this Convention before, confine it
to that, a few sheep out on this property
and claiming it was a farm, get the benefits
of the preferential assessment, then at a
later time sell the property at a high price
and cash in on large capital gains.
In the case that came up in Montgomery
County there were actually Black Angus
cattle which the man who was an acknowl-
edged investor bought, put out on the prop-
erty, and just let them go wild.
The Court of Appeals held that the regu-
lations promulgated by the state tax com-
mission were of no value because it said
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in effect that there was an objective test
that had to be applied, namely, was it or
not land devoted to farm or agricultural
use. If it was so devoted to farm or agri-
cultural use, then the test did not make any
difference, it was the use to which the land
was put and nothing more which con-
trolled; that was and is the posture of the
matter today.
And the recommendation which the Com-
mittee makes seeks to attack it in this way.
First, it mandates that there shall be a
separate assessment of land for agricul-
tural use. This is done by the use of the
word "shall" in the clause to which I di-
rected your attention.
Second, however, it provides that the
General Assembly may by law define what
is or what is not a farm or what is or what
is not agricultural use, thereby permitting:
the General Assembly through its legisla-
tive agency, the State Department of As-
sessments and Taxation, to define farm,,
farm use, and agricultural use.
There is another possibility of course.
There are several other possibilities. We
could do nothing about this subject, in
which event the law would stay essentially
as it is today, assuming that the words of
Article 43 were incorporated. Or you could
provide that the farm assessment would be
permissive only by striking the word "shall"
and substituting in lieu thereof "may". This
would add little to what the words actually
connote and would really make them mean-
ingless.
I think perhaps there will be more to be
said about that at a later time tonight.
So much then for section 8.02.
Section 8.02-1 deals with the question of
equalization. Here again, you have the end
result of a fight which has been going on
in the State for a long time.
Once again, the Commissions to which I
referred earlier directed their attention to
the attempt to make assessments in this
state equal throughout the state.
Unfortunately, although much has been
done in this area, much more needs to be
done. The Committee's Recommendation
will, we believe, be the best guarantee that
the end result which has been desired for
so long by so many people will come to
pass.
It states that the State shall prescribe
and administer uniform rules and methods
for determining property tax assessments.
I call your attention to the word "ad-
minister", because today the assessment
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