Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich is leading a new push to fundamentally change the Maryland suburb’s development tax system as part of a bid to boost the county’s struggling economy and bolster its poor reputation among local builders.
Elrich has crafted new state legislation, introduced Thursday by the county’s legislative delegation, to allow the creation of “special taxing districts” similar to Northern Virginia’s system for funding major transportation projects like Metro’s Silver Line. Under such a scheme, building owners in select areas would pay extra property taxes, with that money devoted to infrastructure improvements in that neighborhood.
The bill would merely make these tax districts possible, but not actually create them. Should the legislation pass in the General Assembly’s new session, which starts in January, Elrich and the County Council would then need to draw the districts, establish tax rates and hash out other logistics.
Click here to read the rest of the article written by Alex Koma over at Washington Business Journal
