nificant sector of the real property base
at a lower rate was unconstitutional. The
court struck down the Farm Assessment
Act,3 which provided that lands actively
devoted to farm or agricultural use might
be assessed on the basis of such use and
not assessed as if subdivided. The amend-
ments to Articles 15 and 43 of the Decla-
ration of Rights were passed to cure the
constitutional defect pointed to in Gales
and to permit the separate assessment of
farm land.
There is ample reason to believe that
the separate classification and assessment
of agricultural or farm land for the pur-
pose of taxing it at a lower rate than
other real property meets the reasonable
classification standards of the Fourteenth
Amendment to the United States Con-
stitution. The United States Supreme
Court has never ruled directly on the
question of whether a separate classifica-
tion for tax purposes of farm land is
constitutional, but it has ruled other clas-
sification schemes valid under the Four-
teenth Amendment.4 To meet Fourteenth
Amendment standards the United States
Supreme Court requires that the tax
schemes must be based upon real and not
feigned differences and that the differ-
ences must be based upon grounds which
will promote valid state objectives.
The claim that the fostering and pro-
tection of agriculture is a valid state
objective is supported by Dickinson v.
Porter5 which held that a classification
of agriculture separate from other real
3 MD. code ann. art. 81, § 19 (b) (1957,
repl. vol. 1965).
4 McGowan v. Md., 366 U.S. 420 (1961);
Allied Stores v. Bowers, 358 U.S. 522, 528
(1959) ; Walters v. City of St. Louis, 347 U.S.
231 (1954) ; Madden v. Ky., 309 U.S. 83, 93
(1940).
5 240 Iowa 393, 35 N.W. 2d 66 (1948).
268
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property is rational and rests upon sound
public policy.6
At present, Article 81, Section 19 (b)
of the Maryland Code provides the fol-
lowing :
"(b) Farm or agricultural use.
Lands which are actively devoted to
farm or agricultural use shall be as-
sessed on the basis of such use, and shall
not be assessed as if subdivided, it being
the intent of the General Assembly
that the assessment of farm land shall
be maintained at levels compatible
with the continued use of such land for
farming and shall not be adversely
affected by neighboring land uses of
a more intensive nature. The General
Assembly hereby declares it to be in
the general public interest that farming
be fostered and encouraged in order to
maintain a readily available source of
food and dairy products close to the
metropolitan areas of the State, to
encourage the preservation of open
space as an amenity necessary to hu-
man welfare and happiness, and to
prevent the forced conversion of such
open space to more intensive uses a re-
sult of economic pressures caused by
the assessment of land at a rate or level
incompatible with the practical use of
such land for farming. The State De-
partment of Assessments and Taxation
shall establish criteria for the purpose
of determining whether lands which
appear to be actively devoted to farm
or agricultural use are in fact bona
fide farms and qualify for assessment
under this subsection. Such criteria
shall be promulgated in rules and reg-
6 Also supporting this view are cases col-
lected in 3 am. jur. 2d Agriculture § 8
(1962). See also Annot., 111 A.L.R. 1486,
Discrimination for purposes of property taxa-
tion between agricultural lands and other real
property (1937).
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