In an attempt to balance the county’s ledger, St. Mary County Commissioner Todd Morgan (R) is proposing that a rental car tax be introduced and the hotel accommodations tax be raised from 5 percent to 7.5 percent, according to the board of county commissioners meeting minutes from Oct. 25.

There is no exact proposal on the auto rental tax rate for the county, especially since the state of Maryland already has an 11.5 percent tax on short-term passenger car and recreational vehicle rentals, according to the state’s comptroller website. 

The county is frequented by contractors to the military industry, Morgan said in an article from Southern Maryland News Online, adding that the taxes are an attempt to take the burden off locals. However, the executive director of St. Mary’s County Chamber of Commerce said that for rental cars, most users are locals because anyone coming into the county already picked a rental car up at the airport.

There will be a public forum Dec. 6 to discuss these two tax proposals.