Repeal the county tax on energy bills

Our Opinion

Friday, March 27, 2009

There's still some unfinished business. Here is one of those items. The commissioners should eliminate the energy tax.

This is a local tax established in 1989 and it applies to electricity, heating oil, propane and other gas. It is a burden that should be lifted from taxpayers.

The commissioners took a stab at that last year. In fact they've been whittling away at it in recent years. It was originally set at 5 percent of energy bills, then cut to 2.5 percent in 2006 and down to 1.25 percent last year.

The trouble, though, is that energy bills skyrocketed. So even though the commissioners cut the tax rate in half, they expect to collect more dollars from the local energy tax this fiscal year — $1.5 million — than they did the year before — $1.3 million.

That is why this tax should be eliminated. Instead of adding to the burden when energy prices go up, local government can get off the back of taxpayers.

This should be the goal. But it's true that the commissioners can't pull the trigger just yet. They have legitimate reason to wait a few weeks, until the Maryland legislature ends its session next month. It's only then that county officials will be able to figure out how much revenue they are getting from the state, and will have to adjust the local budget accordingly.

But it's clear already that St. Mary's will be spared much of the pain of local governments elsewhere, including in neighboring counties. Calvert County's school superintendent is threatening to lay off 80 teachers and 10 teacher aides. The Charles County government is talking about cutting the work hours of county employees and closing county offices in La Plata on Fridays.

Nothing like that is on the horizon for St. Mary's. The county still collects income taxes from a large, highly paid workforce associated with Patuxent River Naval Air Station. Property assessments have remained relatively strong, meaning there will be no drop-off in property taxes collected.

But the jobless rate is ticking up here. It hit 5.4 percent in January, higher than it has been in St. Mary's in years. That still kept it below the state's 6.7 percent, and not nearly as severe as the 8.1 percent national unemployment rate reported for February. But the rising St. Mary's jobless rate is all the more reason to end the regressive energy tax. No matter what their income or whether they have a job or not, people must pay to heat their homes.

And there is no escaping the simple arithmetic — 1.25 percent of a $200 energy bill is twice as expensive as 1.25 percent of a $100 bill. As energy prices rise, the local tax burden rises as well.

This is the year this energy tax should be repealed.