Thank you for the opportunity to speak before you today. As you know, HB 1137 provides a sales and use tax exemption to three carefully defined technology sectors in Maryland. In fact, it is the diversity of these technologies sectors and their respective stages of development that makes HB 1137 a well designed, balanced bill. Under HB 1137, communication equipment used in an internet infrastructure facility would be exempt from sales and use tax.
All business depends on the internet.
Company after company, including the likes of worldwide telecommunications leader Hughes Network Systems, arrive in Montgomery County literally searching for the closest POP or server farm. And unfortunately, too many are located just across the river to the south. As more services migrate to the internet, and as the internet becomes the primary pathway for commerce and the transport of video and voice as well as data, this infrastructure will become exponentially more vital to the State's economic growth. HB 1137 would spur the growth of internet infrastructure facilities by exempting the communications equipment in such facilities from the sales and use tax. As a mechanism to foster and grow our leadership position in genomics and proteomics, HB 1137 provides a sales and use tax exemption for supercomputing equipment used in the development, analysis, interpretation, or integration of genomic, proteomic, and related biological and medical information.