Facing down a future multi-billion-dollar budget hole, some Democratic leaders in the Maryland General Assembly have plan to raise money by expanding the sales tax to services.

But it’s not popular among businesses, Republicans or even among all Democrats in Annapolis.

“This is a conversation starter,” Del. David Moon told his colleagues at the start of a rare Monday morning bill hearing.

Moon, the Democratic majority leader of the House of Delegates, has taken up the mantle of pushing to raise more money from the sales tax, four years after the exact same proposal was rejected just before the coronavirus pandemic swept into Maryland.

Moon said he’s had “a very nervous eye toward what’s going on with the state budget” and feels lawmakers need to make difficult decisions about how to raise enough money to pay for an ambitious public schools improvement plan, transportation system upgrades and keep the state’s budget in balance.

His proposal is an attempt to address those needs “with a single vote,” rather than “attempting to cobble together a revenue package out of many disparate options until we get desired numbers.”

Moon’s proposal would drop the state’s sales tax to 5% from 6%, but at the same time expand it to an array of services that aren’t currently taxed, from accounting to landscaping to contracting to dry cleaning.

It would raise an estimated $3 billion per year once fully in place.

A breakdown of the new polls continues at The Baltimore Banner: Maryland lawmakers put billion-dollar sales tax expansion on the table

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