County and Towns Discuss Tax Equity
County Executive Jan Gardner recently met with members of the Frederick County Chapter of the Maryland Municipal League to discuss the current tax equity program under which Frederick County Government reimburses the municipalities for some of the property tax revenue collected for roads, parks and recreation, planning and zoning, law enforcement and other services. She announced during her weekly public information briefing last week that she reviewed the program with the officials as required under a new state law and received favorable feedback about maintaining the current arrangement.
Executive Gardner offered to create a work group to review the tax equity formula and municipal officials agreed to get back to her in September. She also will meet with The City of Frederick to discuss their use of the tax differential system.
“I value tax fairness with all our municipalities and will follow through on the requirements in state legislation to review our tax equity program with them. I look forward to maintaining a positive dialog with our elected officials as we take a look at the program calculations and consider any improvements. I am thankful for the positive feedback from our municipal officials about what we’re doing now, but I am always looking for ways for better and more efficient ways to serve our taxpayers,” said Executive Gardner.
Tax equity, also referred to as a property tax set-off, enables county government to compensate municipalities for services or programs that the municipalities also provide. It is meant to compensate for taxation of municipal taxpayers occurring when both municipal and county property taxes are levied to fund similar services. These set-offs can take the form of a tax rebate directly paid to the municipality or a tax rate differential that results in a lower county property tax rate for the municipal tax payers.
The Town of Myersville and The City of Frederick use the tax differential system. In FY2015, the municipalities received approximately $13 million through the tax equity program.
