2012 April Budget & Tax News

The April issue of Budget & Tax News reports a key piece of Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley’s legislative agenda this year involves shifting some government employee pension costs away from the state and requiring county governments to make up the difference.

Also in this issue:

• Kansas House Republican leaders have unveiled the broad outlines of a major tax overhaul proposal that focuses on curbing state spending to reduce state income taxes.

• Georgia penitentiaries continue to feed, clothe, and pay medical expenses for hundreds of inmates who were approved for parole but cannot be released because they have nowhere to live.

• Over the past decade Portland, Oregon’s redevelopment agency has loaned developers, private companies, and organizations $125 million, more than half of which was at interest rates below the annual inflation rate. Lending below the inflation rate is essentially paying someone to borrow your money.

• Just 10 months after the Raleigh Michigan Studios opened in Pontiac, Michigan, the movie studio missed a $630,000 bond payment. But the bondholders received their money courtesy of the Michigan Employees’ Retirement System. Former governor Jennifer Granholm and lawmakers forced the employee pension system to back an $18 million loan for the studio.

• Cut the federal debt or the United States will cease to exist as a superpower--that was the message Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson had for a packed house at Duke University’s Page Auditorium.

• Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley’s 2012 budget would impose taxes on digitally delivered goods and services and tax purchases made from out-of-state online retailers that rely on referrals from affiliates.