The average
price of a new
home in 1961
was $12,550.

Prospering

Marylanders

generated a

four-fold jump

in income tax

revenue during

the 1960s, from

$105.4 million to

$467.4 million.

In the mid-
1960s, six out of
ten American
corporations
with annual
earnings of
more than $100
million had
installations in
Maryland.

he 1960s found Maryland's
three million citizens and the
nation creating a new era of
economic prosperity and vigor,
symbolized by a youthful Presi-
dent in the White House.

Maryland's top revenue
source - the income tax - hit three
figures for the first time, netting
$100 million
in 1963.

A year

later, sales tax
receipts
matched the
same mile-
stone. In the
Baltimore and
Washington
D.C. suburbs
alone, retail
sales jumped
165% during
the decade.

For the
Comptroller's
Office - and
Maryland's 24
political
subdivisions -
another high
water mark
occurred in
1967, when
the state
adopted a
graduated
state income

tax, including a local " piggyback"
income tax collected by the state.

That first year under the new
law, Maryland taxpayers paid
$217.4 million in state and local

income taxes on the same tax form.

20

That same year, the
comptroller's income tax division
moved to a new building on
Carroll Street in Annapolis.

For Maryland's chief revenue
sources, the decade ended with
two changes reflecting the increas-
ing demands on government
services.

Maryland State Comptroller Louis L. Goldstein (second from left)
welcomed the coming of the Parole Shopping Center in Anne Arundel
County with local officials in a 1961 groundbreaking - planting yet
another revenue generator for Maryland's economy. Photo by Marion E.
Warren; courtesy of the Maryland State Archives, Marion E. Warren Collection, MSA SC
1890-30, 223B

The Maryland legislature
raised the state sales tax rate to 4%
in 1969, generating a total of $236.8
million - and state income tax
auditors went online for the first
time, bringing early high-tech
efficiency to taxpayer service.