Read this. you won’t believe it. Md. Senate Gets Heat on Tech Tax Plan.
The boneheads in the Maryland legislature have hit on a great idea. Let’s tax the stuff that all our workers use to earn a living. You know, the stuff that can disappear on optical fiber at the speed of light. If they were my students I would flunk them all.
The Maryland Senate shot down a proposal to make room in the state’s budget to repeal a highly criticized tax on computer services on Wednesday, but rising heat from the industry has lawmakers considering ways to soften the blow.
On a day when opponents rallied against the so-called “Tech Tax,” Sen. David Brinkley, R-Frederick, proposed an amendment to the Senate’s budget bill to make up for an estimated $214 million the tax is estimated to generate.
The amendment would have paved the way to repeal the tax by drawing on $114 million in the state’s fund balance and requiring Gov. Martin O’Malley to cut another $100 million from state agencies.
“This was a bad idea from the start,” Brinkley said. “The question now is what do we do … How do we get ourselves out of this quagmire?”
he computer services industry is infuriated by the tax, which was ushered through the General Assembly quickly during the special session – after extensions of the sales tax to other services were nixed when targeted industries rallied noisily in Annapolis.
Brinkley found support with several Democrats, including Sen. Jennie Forehand, D-Montgomery, who held up tax legislation in the waning hours of November’s special session because she didn’t like the computer tax proposal.
Forehand said lawmakers will have no idea what the fiscal impact to the state will be, if the computer services industry folds up and “decides to go across the river into Virginia or somewhere else” to flee the tax.
JR
