By: jackie.sauter

The presiding officers of the Maryland House and Senate say spending is going to be tight this year, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be new policy proposals on the table. And though the cash-crunched state is trying to make every dollar count, Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. says he doesn’t think too highly about any plans for new taxes.

He’s also not a big fan of Prince George’s Sen. Paul Pinsky’s perennial push to change the state’s corporate tax laws. Miller said at the Maryland Chamber of Commerce’s policy conference on Friday that he would not support a bill that Pinsky said he is going to introduce that would implement “combined reporting.”

The practice, which would require companies to pay income taxes based on the amount of business they do in the state (instead of where their headquarters is located), is very unpopular with the chamber. Each year, Pinsky gathers data from the Maryland Comptroller’s office in an attempt to calculate the amount that the state’s largest employers have paid, and whether that’s enough.

This time, Pinsky requested tax payment info from the 50 largest corporations. A lot of people at the conference were not pleased about this. The state has been asking for tax information from companies this year as part of a wider study of whether to implement combined reporting.

The debate always gets a little bitter around this time of year. Do you think the corporate reporting issue will settle down once the state starts to make progress on its study of the issue?

ANDY ROSEN, Business Writer