Tax Broke Screening - University of Maryland School of Social Work

For decades, Baltimore has struggled to grow, hamstrung by a property tax rate twice the surrounding counties. The unequal burden has prompted the city to pursue a risky strategy of effectively paying developers to build.

Using incentives with innocuous sounding acronyms like TIFs and PILOTs, new construction in the city has occurred largely at the expense of the city’s working class. Meanwhile, despite the promises that incentives would reverse the city’s decline, Baltimore continues to lose population.

How did we get here? Why is Baltimore the only jurisdiction in the state that must pay for development? And is there a better way to grow a city?

These are just a few of the questions that our going investigation titiled Tax Broke will try to answer. The centerpeice of the project is an investigative documentary of the same name. The film—five years in the making—explores the history of the city’s fraught relationship with artificially imposed boundaries, codified segregation, and finally a political economy fueled by hundreds of millions of dollars in tax incentives doled out behind closed doors.

Join us for a screeing of the film with Professor Jeff Singer along with fimakers Janye MIller, Stephen Janis and Taya Graham do dicuss Baltimore's opaque tax break system and alternatives to grow Baltimore for everyone

Host or Publisher Professor Jeff Singer