ITEP’s Kamolika Das Responds to Misleading Baltimore Sun Op-ed

ITEP Local Policy Director Kamolika Das had this letter to the editor published in the Baltimore Sun on September 18:

David F. Tufaro’s recent commentary about the Renew Baltimore campaign is wildly misleading (“Baltimore’s high property taxes sustain a broken system,” Sept. 15). The Renew Baltimore proposal to drastically cut and permanently cap Baltimore’s property tax rate would have reduced general fund revenues by nearly a quarter over time compared to current projections. This would force the city to reduce or eliminate valuable public safety, sanitation, health and youth services, including laying off about 400 firefighters and eliminating street cleaning.

Tufaro criticizes Baltimore’s current policies for favoring “wealthy, well-connected owners and developers,” yet our meticulous analysis finds that nearly a third of the Renew Baltimore tax cut would flow to higher-income non-Baltimore residents such as landlords and business owners, and another 36% would flow to Baltimore’s richest 20% of residents.

In other words, a household earning over $200,000 annually is likely to save an average of $3,000, while a household earning $50,000 annually would save less than $350 each year. Proponents of Renew Baltimore have insidiously used research about racial bias and inequities in the property tax system as a rationale for their proposal, but Renew Baltimore would have worsened existing racial inequality since the top-heavy tax cuts are very likely to disproportionately benefit wealthier, white households. Further, the deep cuts to essential services like after-school programming would have hit Baltimore’s low-income Black residents the hardest. Significant property tax cuts have also led to higher fines and fees to counterbalance lost property tax revenue in places like Kansas, California and Texas, which, again, disproportionately harms low-income communities of color.

The campaign’s language emphasizes the need for equity and fairness, but passing out huge tax cuts to non-Baltimoreans and the wealthy is not the way to do it. Better strategies for making Baltimore more affordable for low-income residents include strengthening protections for low-income homeowners, creating a renter’s tax credit, investing in affordable housing and creating a local match to the state Earned Income Tax Credit, like Montgomery County’s Working Families Income Supplement.

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