The Montgomery County Council voted unanimously Tuesday to expand an existing tax credit available to county homeowners that meet certain income criteria.
If signed into law by County Executive Marc Elrich, the legislation will allow more homeowners to qualify for the county’s supplemental program to the state homeowners tax credit.
The state credit is a progressive tax credit administered by the Maryland Department of Assessment and Taxation that allows lower-income households to receive a larger credit on their property taxes.
The county bill would increase the combined income eligibility level from $60,000 to $75,000, and it would increase the net worth criteria from $200,000 to $250,000, so that more households could qualify for the county’s supplemental tax relief program.
The bill was sponsored by County President Kate Stewart (D-Dist. 4) and co-sponsored by her colleagues on the Government Operations and Fiscal Policy Committee, councilmembers Andrew Friedson (D-Dist. 1) and Sidney Katz (D-Dist. 3).
Stewart said that the committee wanted to increase the tax credit’s eligibility for county residents who are on fixed incomes or who are lower income.
“Approximately 13,000 households will now be eligible for the credit that weren’t prior to increasing the eligibility amounts,” Stewart said.
Stewart said she hopes this expansion will help county residents who have been affected by the mass federal layoffs.
“We’ve been having a lot of conversations about assessments and what’s happening in the county with our federal workforce, looking at ways to assist residents who are seeing increases in their [property] assessments,” Stewart said. “This is one way to do it, and to do it in a progressive way.”
More than 70,000 federal workers live in the county and the Trump administration’s layoffs and firings have already impacted more than 1,000 confirmed residents, according to county officials, who have acknowledged that number is likely much higher in reality. That number also does not include federal workers who reside in neighboring jurisdictions and work at agencies based in the county, such as the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, the Food and Drug Administration in White Oak or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Silver Spring.
At the same time, property assessments are up an average of about 20.1% from three years ago across the state, according to the Maryland Department of Assessments and Taxation. That number is slightly lower for Montgomery County at 17.7%, according to Michael Coveyou, the county’s finance director.
“Many of our residents … [are] facing significant housing affordability challenges, and they are in desperate need of relief, and that was even before all of these draconian and callous actions at the federal level that are leaving so many in our community with deep levels of uncertainty about their jobs and their incomes and their livelihoods,” Friedson said before the vote on the bill Tuesday.
Stewart also said during a press briefing Monday that she hopes the expansion will help the county’s senior citizens stay in their homes.
“As we know, many of our seniors are on [a] fixed income,” Stewart said. “So we do anticipate that this will help people as they get older in our community and are on fixed incomes, and also help those who are on limited incomes.”
A spokesperson for Elrich could not immediately confirm Tuesday afternoon whether Elrich planned to sign the bill into law.
