Senate Bill 331 is proposed to accomplish this. Senate Bill 331 provides that subsequent laws authorizing tax credits under Title 9 of Tax-Property have no effect on any organization's eligibility for tax exemption under Title 7. It also provides, in uncodified language, that it be applied prospectively only, and regarding prior tax credit authorizations, that the Act creates no inference regarding any entity's eligibility for tax exemption. As a rule, the organizations which come before you seeking a credit will have been denied an exemption by the Department of Assessment's internal process. Only rarely will these cases have been to the Maryland Tax Court for resolution.
Organizations often decide to come to the legislature as an economic last resort.
They may or may not accept the judgment of the Department, but in many cases, the dollar amount involved for the particular organization does not merit legal fees, regardless of the possible outcome on their claim. The Department may be correct in its internal judgments on the great majority of cases, but it is also inclined, and its proper role is, to resolve the borderline cases against exemption and place the burden on the claimant to establish the right to an exemption. Without a provision such as SB 331, each case they deny where you grant potential relief by authorizing a credit, becomes a definitive statement regarding the exemption standard. We don't think that is your intent. The practice we have observed is that individual tax credit authorizations are treated as essentially local legislation, where 'local courtesy' is given to the wishes of legislators from the jurisdiction where the organization is located, and the position of the local government is considered.