Give Maryland’s local governments more flexibility with income tax rates

Reducing the tax burden on people who can least afford to pay ought to be a guiding principle at every level of government, whether there’s been a pandemic-spawned economic downturn or not. For all the talk of simplified “flat” tax rates heard elsewhere, it has simply never made sense to expect someone making bare subsistence wages to turn over the same percentage of income in taxes as someone making many times that salary. Thankfully, that soon may change in Maryland’s local jurisdictions. Under the Local Tax Relief for Working Families Act of 2021 (House Bill 319 and Senate Bill 133), Maryland subdivisions would be allowed to set rates on a bracket basis with higher rates for higher incomes and lower rates for lower incomes as they see fit. The goal here is to allow greater flexibility to permit targeted tax cuts.