Advocates say businesses benefit from Md.’s tax structure

“So often when we talk about business climate it devolves into a conversation about taxes, business taxes, what do we do about business taxes,” said Benjamin Orr, executive director of the Maryland Center for Economic Policy, a nonprofit which has advocated for moving the state toward a combined reporting tax structure that would yield more taxes from companies that operate in multiple states.

Orr said the commission needs to focus on the bigger picture and also consider the services companies get in return. To that end, his organization has sent a letter to the commission attempting to highlight those benefits and look skeptically at rankings he said often reflect the political agendas of their authors.

“It’s an argument for taking these rankings sometimes with a grain of salt and asking the members of the commission to remember the benefits that businesses get for locating here,” said Orr. “What I refer to as the return on their tax dollar that doesn’t get talked about, that doesn’t get into these different rankings and to push back on the idea that any one number that’s been aggregated out of all sorts of things that may or may not actually impact a state’s economic climate.”

Orr noted that a ranking last year done by the accounting firm of Ernst and Young found that Maryland businesses receive $1 in benefits for every 80 cents paid in taxes.

 

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