We've already covered some of the major changes to Maryland's state income tax law, enacted earlier this year by Maryland's General Assembly. Those changes will have significant impact on individual taxpayers and employers alike.

Now, with the understanding that it's never too early to start thinking about tax season, let's take a closer look at the other tax-related legislation enacted by the General Assembly.

The Comptroller's Office has published a summary of Maryland's 2012 tax legislation, and it's impressive. The summary examines:

• tax credits for qualifying employees with disabilities;
• a bid to reduce health disparities, improve health outcomes, and reduce health costs and hospital admissions / readmissions in specific areas of the state;
• an extension of the Job Creation Tax Credit;
• mortgage forgiveness debt relief;
• a tax credit for businesses that create new jobs;
• and, of course, those new individual state income tax rates.

Other issues covered include those related to sales and use tax, admissions and amusement tax, estate tax, and tobacco tax.

Download the summary as part of the summer 2012 edition of Revenews, a quarterly publication produced by the Comptroller's Office. The summary begins on page 3.

You might want to bone up on state tax changes now. Once the election is over, it'll be all fed tax, all the time. The AICPA's Barry Melancon says the upcoming “lame duck” session of Congress could be one of the busiest ever, with outgoing legislators rushing to address issues like expiring tax cuts, the debt ceiling, estate taxes, automatic “supercommittee” spending cuts, and the alternative minimum tax, to name but a few.

Stay tuned — the next few months are bound to be pretty wild.