Anne Arundel reverses course on short sales
The about-face was an immediate reaction to an opinion issued yesterday afternoon by the Maryland Attorney General's office, which said statute and case law don't give counties the authority to tax homes in the way the county was doing.
More in today's story, including the promise of refunds -- though few homes actually got taxed in this way, the county says.
The original story about the uproar over the taxing practice is here.
No one who commented on the blog post about it said they agreed with the policy. Wonk reader Frank Rizzo, for instance, thought the county should stop:
"If you owe 300k and the homes are selling for 200k, then guess what? The home is worth 200k," he wrote. "If the home was worth more, then most likely they would sell the home for more. ... It should not matter what the seller owes on the home when determining transfer taxes, as they are based on the SALES price. The County wants to keep assessments higher because they know if they ... come down, their property tax revenue will fall too."
Thoughts?
Categories: Property taxes, The foreclosure mess
Sign up for the At Home newsletter 
Comments
Taxing short sales is clearly a bad idea. Doing anything that could prevent even one home sale from occuring is silly as we need the homes to sell to people who can afford them asap. Most of the time when people are selling their homes via short sale they may not even be able to bring any money to the closing. When even the federal government is not taxing the relief of indebtedness aspect of the transaction then surely the county should not be taxing it either. Let's not do anything to adversely affect the fledgling economic recovery please
Posted by: Roberto Stoops | August 2, 2010 9:15 AM
Thank you Roberto for the helpful info. I have been working on a short sale for some time now and have been getting so frustrated with how long it takes. I want to do the right things and get it sold but I am having trouble hanging on. Thanks again.
Posted by: High Speed Internet Access | August 3, 2010 9:24 AM
I agree with Frank Rizzo as doesn't market value mean what two parties agree to buy and sell the home for. What if Walmart runs a sale on an item that used to cost $1.00 and they decide to sell it for 90 cents. Under the state's logic then the buyer might have to pay sales tax on $1.00 as that used to be what it cost or what was "owed".
Posted by: Murfreesboro Homes | August 4, 2010 3:18 PM