A Baltimore City Council committee will hear Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’s proposals for a new tax and preventing the rate from dropping on another.
The Taxation Finance and Economic Development Committee will meet starting at 10 a.m., Thursday at City Hall, 100 N. Holiday St. on a proposal to charge a 25 cent excise tax on “passenger-for-hire” services as well as keeping the parking tax rate at 20 percent, according to the council’s website.
Both of the proposals were included in a plan released by the mayor earlier this year to offset a predicted $745 million operating budget deficit in the next decade. The so called "taxi tax" and parking tax are also part of the Rawlings-Blake’s proposed fiscal year 2014 budget.
The budget has already been approved by the city’s spending board and will now have a series of hearings before council committees, and will then be sent to the entire council to approve. The council may make cuts to the budget during the process but may not add any spending.