1926                             Joint Resolutions

cians AND IN THEIR STUDY THE COMMISSION SHALL CON-
SIDER THE ISSUANCES OF LICENSES AT THE LOCAL
LEVEL; and be it further

Resolved, That copies of this Resolution are sent to the Governor.
Approved May 26, 1972.

No. 48
(House Joint Resolution 77)

House Joint Resolution requesting the Legislative Council to under-
take a thorough and extensive study of property taxation in
Maryland.

Whereas, The inequities and inadequacies of property taxation as
the major source of revenue for local government have been well
documented in the number of bills introduced at the 1972 session of
the General Assembly concerning property assessments and taxa-
tion; and

Whereas, In testimony before the Ways and Means Committee of
the House of Delegates the following problem areas were brought
forcibly to the Committee's attention:

(1)    Increases in assessments greater than 60% over the prior
assessment

(2)    Inequities in assessments between properties within an ad-
jacent area

(3)    Increases in assessments at a time when wages and prices
were frozen

(4)    The need for reassessing on a more scheduled basis

(5)    The variation in levels of assessments between residential,
commercial and industrial properties

(6)    Continual increases in property tax rates

(7)    The impact of property taxes on those with fixed incomes;
and

Whereas, There is a need to study the continual reliance on prop-
erty taxation as a major source of local revenue due to

(1)    Recent court decisions concerning the funding of education;
and

(2)    The inability of the property tax to demonstrate a revenue
growth to help offset the growth in local expenditures; and

WHEREAS, The large amount of revenue currently produced by the
property tax requires that any change in this revenue source be ac-
complished after a thorough and detailed study of these changes; now,
therefore, be it