Maryland Taxpayers Balk At Getting Hosed on Orioles’ Owner’s Property Taxes

Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore, MD (courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

Stadium schemes aimed at having the cost billed to taxpayers by state and local governments tend to be the most frustrating for taxpayers.  The Taxpayers Protection Alliace (TPA) has always stood firm that if voters don’t want to pay for a sports owner’s property, then they shouldn’t be forced to do so. Here’s a new twist though, in a story just north of DC, Maryland taxpayers are likely to feel the heat after an accounting error on a tax credit neglected to accurately tax a resident sports franchise owner on some of his property.

In late September, the Baltimore Sun reported that the city underbilled Baltimore Orioles majority owner Peter Angelos to the tune of $390,000 for a downtown office tower.  This has been ongoing since 2011, and though the Mayor’s office has classified this as an “isolated incident,” there is evidence that similar underbilling occurred over the last four years for two other large buildings totaling over $300,000. Those of you who can do math understand that the city of Baltimore made accounting errors on property tax assessments that total more than $700,00; and guess where city officials are looking to make up that lost revenue? Here’s a hint: not the owners of the property. The lost revenues may have to be generated by taxpayers, and not Angelos (though a rep for Mr. Angelos said the bill would be paid).

The errors involved Maryland’s enterprise zone credit, which “reduces a company’s local property taxes on the value added by new construction or improvements to an existing building. Councilman Carl Stokes, chairman of the taxation committee, made a plea for immediate action to prevent future “errors” and has introduced two resolutions to address these problems. The first resolution calls for the audit, which Stokes says is necessary to “determine exactly what errors have been made in administering the city’s property tax programs and how much these errors are costing the city.” The other proposal aims for the finance department to look into privatizing tax calculations and collections to put an end to the “chronic and costly tax errors plaguing Baltimore.”

The accounting errors are inexcusable and underscore the need for greater transparency and more efficiency when it comes to the current tax structure in the state of Maryland, states across the country, and the US tax code. The embarrassment for the city of Baltimore and the state of Maryland could also be somewhat of a cruel joke, when you take into account (no pun intended) that this year Governor Martin O’Malley’s Maryland was rated among the highest taxed states in the country. Taxpayers in Maryland are getting hosed already and the unfriendly business climate has spurred other Governors from states around America to try and lure business and consumers out of the Bay State, and into their own.

The Mayor of Baltimore, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, has decried the errors and recognizes the seriousness of this issue but Stokes says the problem is far more than a series of “errors” and wants to completely overhaul the system and while TPA isn’t advocating for increased taxes, a system that may be costing the taxpayers $30 million is in dire need of reform and the goal of accuracy and efficiency is something that would benefit taxpayers in the long run.