From Senator Nancy Jacobs
Special Session Update: Take Action Now.
November 9, 2007
Greetings,
In the past you have written me regarding various proposals to raise taxes.
As you know, Governor O'Malley has called this special session specifically
to raise taxes. One of the most egregious bills he has proposed will raise and
expand the sales tax. Knowing your interest in this issue, I wanted to
provide you with an update as to the status of the various tax hikes as proposed
by Governor O'Malley.
By way of background, Gov. O'Malley has proposed Maryland's most
regressive tax package in history. This plan will hurt Maryland's
middle-class working families and small businesses. And let me reiterate my
promise to vote against this historic tax hike proposal.
I sit on the Judicial Proceedings Committee, but on Tuesday I attended
hearings of the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee to make sure I had a
full understanding of the bills Gov. O'Malley was presenting and what I heard
disgusted me.
Let me begin by telling you that the calls, letters and emails against these
new taxes are putting a tremendous amount of pressure on the legislators....and
it is working! Earlier in the week members of the Maryland Realtors Association
and various representatives of fitness clubs from across the states rallied hard
to have their services removed from the sales tax expansion bill.
Both groups were successful. Additionally the Budget & Taxation Committee
removed the gas tax indexing, thanks to your public outcry. Of course any or all
of these provisions can still be added by the House of Delegates, but for now we
succeeded on removing the provisions from the bills. But don't let that fool
you-- where we succeeded, we also failed.
Under the cloak of a late night meeting the committee inserted three new
services: computer services, lawn care services, and video games. No
lobbyists, citizens, or affected parties had any forewarning of their inclusion
and instead woke up to find themselves suddenly under the tax. The Committee
working in collaboration with Gov. O'Malley's staffers took what was a $60
million tax bill and turned it into a whopping 400% increase or $302 million tax
bill in less than 8 minutes!
It is important that you know that while I opposed the Governor's tax bills, I
still made an effort to amend his bills to protect higher education students by
exempting them from the computer services sales tax, to reduce the marriage
penalty on income taxes, and to exempt healthy video games used in schools—these
amendments failed. However, I was able to successfully pass one amendment that
exempts home-schooling parents from paying the computer service sales tax.
Today's session saw a lot of action, but there were two items I wanted to
highlight for you.
- Item one was that early in
the day we heard an amendment to remove lawn care services from the
expansion of the sales tax and this amendment failed 23-24. But later in the
evening the 24 succumbed to public pressure and lawn care services were
removed in a 46-0 vote!
- Item two was the changing
of residency requirements for the purposes of income taxes. In a very close
and emotional vote, anyone living in the state for three months or more will
now be subject to Maryland income taxes. This amendment is grossly unfair to
those people who like to spend their summers by the Bay. No one will
consider spending the summer in Maryland, let alone owning a second house in
the state now.
Tomorrow the Senate will take up the "third readings" of the bills. Third
readings are the final readings of bills and amendments can no longer be offered
for these bills. After the Senate concludes, the House of Delegates will then
take up these bills to approve them and make any changes they see fit and also
pass any bills of their own. I encourage you to listen along when the Senate
and House is in session tomorrow at
http://mlis.state.md.us/asp/listen.asp.
I've been blessed to have such a strong showing of support from our community--
my phones have been ringing off the hook and my email box has been filling up.
I want you to know I am not backing down to Gov. O'Malley's regressive tax
hikes and I will continue to fight for all of you. They don't call us the
Old Line State for nothing!
It is crucial that constituents keep the pressure on their legislators.
Friday there will be a move in the Senate to filibuster these tax hikes. This is
being orchestrated by both Democrats and Republicans alike. Please continue to
email and call Annapolis and let your legislators know where you stand.
Sincerely,
Nancy Jacobs
State Senator, District 34 -- Harford and Cecil Counties
http://www.nancyjacobs.com
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