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FOR
HB 987 Dee
Hodges, President March 8, 2005 Madame chairman, members of the Ways and Means Committee: My name is Dee Hodges, and I am president of the Maryland Taxpayers Association, Inc. MTA is the Free State's statewide, volunteer, non-profit, non-partisan voice for Maryland taxpayers. MTA strongly urges the Ways and Means Committee to restore the deduction for qualified tuition and related expenses. The possible net effect on revenue is very small compared to the overall value to Maryland of having more highly educated workers in the twenty-first century. Maryland's economy must be competitive. This means having a highly educated work force. On the margin, more students have been priced out of higher education owing to rising tuitions. The recoupling proposed today is a modest step toward restoring opportunity for these students. Needless to point out to this committee, more productive citizens mean more revenue for Maryland. MTA has consistently been against any sort of decoupling from the Federal code. Decoupling makes filing Maryland taxes more complicated. Decoupling defeats the purpose of boosting the Maryland economy. In 2002, the General Assembly decoupled Maryland citizens from over $500 million (totaled from FY 2003 to FY 2007) in state tax relief. The tuition tax deduction amounted to nearly $60,000,000 of this decoupling, hurting, of course, those who needed help the most. I would expect that no legislator would want to tell his constituents that he was against higher education for those qualified for this deduction. For these reasons, MTA urges a vote in favor of restoration of this modest tuition tax deduction. |
