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procedure is not administered by the State
as a central agency.
The State Department of Assessments and
Taxation, it is true, employs the Chief Su-
pervisor of Assessments of Baltimore City
and the 23 counties, but other than this
.and certain guidelines which it can produce,
it does not have the complete control of
procedures.
This provision would, as you will see,
require that this shall be done. The second
sentence of the provision has a different
thrust. It says state funds distributed to
political subdivisions on the basis of as-
sessments of property shall be determined
by equal honest assessments between such
subdivisions as may be provided by law.
As you all know or certainly the great
majority of you know, the State distributes
grants in aid to Baltimore City, and the 23
counties, in some instances on the basis of
land value.
Put it differently. The attempt has been
made and has been made in this State
since 1924 to gauge certain grants in aid on
an ability to pay basis. This means that
the richer counties in effect seek to help
the poor counties.
The first step in this particular type of
proposal was in the educational field where
the equalization fund was worked so that
poor counties would receive greater amounts
of money from the State than richer coun-
ties, in order to insure the fact that every
child in the State would at least have a
modicum of equal educational opportunities.
However, because of the unequal assess-
ment procedures this method, laudable as it
was, proved to be a raid on the state
treasury.
Again in the health field funds were dis-
tributed for many years on the basis of
catch as catch can. The sum total of all this
history was brought together in 1956 when
for the first time state monies were dis-
tributed to local political subdivisions in the
health field on the basis of an equalizing
formula.
Subsequently an attempt was made to do
this with respect to the educational field
and this is true today. What the Commit-
tee's proposal is or comes to is this, that all
state monies which are distributed on the
basis of assessments should be distributed
on the basis of equalized assessments, so
that nobody can gain by underassessment,
no small county or large, for that matter,
can gain an advantage through not follow-
ing the law.
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This means in substance that a board
perhaps, or m'aybe the State Department of
Assessments and Taxation will devise
methods of equalizing assessments. These
methods are varied and many and I am not
going to take the time of the Committee of
the Whole to describe the mathematical
combinations which go into the calculations
looking toward an ultimate equalization of
assessments.
Suffice it to say that this provision now
will mandate that this very desirable pro-
vision will become part of the basic law
which it is not today.
The final provision, section 8.02-2 deals
with exemptions. Here again, a little his-
tory is in order.
When we were attempting to draft the
provision relating to the equalization of
assessments, it was recognized of course
that the assessment is only one facet of
the tax gathering procedure. The other
and perhaps as important is the facet of
exemptions.
It might surprise you to know in this
State today there are over sixty different
kinds of exemptions from property taxes.
They vary from county to county through-
out the State.
Now, every time an exemption is passed,
whether it be passed because of good will
or political motivations, it in effect erodes
the tax base. This has been felt to be an
improper procedure for many years, and
the Committee's report seeks to meet it by
saying that the exemptions shall be uni-
form.
But unfortunately, we have not been able
to go as far as we would like to go, be-
cause you will notice that it deals with
exemptions from state taxes only. This
applies of course to the state property tax,
it applies to any other state tax, sales or
income tax, and in that regard we think it
is a salutary provision.
It does not apply, unfortunately, to taxes
imposed by local political subdivisions. The
reason for this is there is such a variety
of exemptions in the state today vis-a-vis
one another that we were informed by the
fiscal experts of the state that many mil-
lions of dollars would be affected and dis-
location of local political subdivisions' econ-
omy if they were required to equalize
exemptions.
One example in point might be the fact
that in Baltimore County the inventory of
manufacturers is not exempt from tax,
while it is in Baltimore City.
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