Montgomery Taxpayers: Here’s Your Receipt
Nearly every taxpayer has asked the same question: Where the-hello-dolly does my tax money go?
Montgomery County is now offering you a receipt.
A new tool on the county website lets taxpayers enter their home assessments and their estimated incomes to see line-by-line receipts of what the money paid for.
“You’ll be able to put information into this program and get an idea where your money goes in the county,” County Executive Marc Elrich said at a Monday news conference. “Hopefully this will give people a better picture of how we’re using their money.”
“Your Taxpayer Receipt” uses averages in its calculations. For example, the county’s local income tax rate is 3.2 percent, but the system uses 2.6 percent because of the deductions most people take.
So for example, if someone owns a home assessed at $450,000 and make $150,000 a year, they pay about $4,400 in property taxes and $3,900 in income taxes for a total of about $8,300. Of that, $3,546 goes to Montgomery County Public Schools and $293 goes to Montgomery College.
Police coverage costs $568 and the fire service costs $450.
“We’re trying to be transparent in this administration to let the taxpayers know what they’re paying for,” budget director Richard Madaleno said.
The receipt webpage follows the county’s “Balancing Act” page where individuals could try to balance the county budget. Madaleno said Montgomery is the first jurisdiction in the region that has provided the receipt software. The receipt software was produced in conjunction with the Balancing Act company, which did the budget balancing software.
“I think it’s a good snapshot of where the money is going,” Elrich said.
Here’s a PDF of a “Taxpayer Receipt.”
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