Following Governor Martin O’Malley’s misstatement of key statistics
measuring Maryland’s tax burden, Change Maryland acknowledged the
Washington D.C.-based Tax Foundation’s critical role in clarifying the
issue.

“In this economy, with people struggling to make ends meet, the last
thing we need right now is false information from our elected
officials about Maryland’s tax burden,” said Change Maryland
Chairman Larry Hogan. “Fortunately, someone was paying attention, and
I applaud their diligence in helping Governor O’Malley arrive at the
truth.”

The Tax Foundation noted that the O’Malley Administration eliminated
Delaware in a comparison of sales tax burdens because the state has no
sales tax. Virginia’s sales tax burden was misstated in an attempt to
make Maryland look more competitive.

The admission of error came as a direct result of a Tax Foundation
criticism of O’Malley’s blog post in which he personally attacked
Change Maryland and it’s members. The attack came as a result of
unexpected media attention in the wake of Change Maryland’s report of
tax filers moving to other states.

“Maryland’s tax system is not a competitive one, so I can understand
the pressure O’Malley is under to show that it’s somehow not that
bad,” said Tax Foundation Vice President for State Projects Joseph
Henchman. “We’re still critical of his approach of picking a few data
points while missing the overall picture, but it crossed the line when
his office put out wrong data on other states’ tax rates.”

“We take a lot of pride in giving accurate information,” said Tax
Foundation economist Scott Drenkard to the Washington Times, which
reported that O’Malley spokesman Raquel Guillory “admitted that the
blog post had been incorrect on Virginia.”

Similarly, Delaware was later added to the comparison.