Maryland's comptroller has failed to use every enforcement tool at its disposal to chase down more than $600 million in unpaid taxes from individuals and businesses since 2022, according to a new state audit. The review also found that more than 6,500 tax returns flagged as questionable were never investigated, and that 18,300 delinquent accounts totaling $251.7 million had gone without wage garnishment or bank attachment as of February.
Auditors Fault Enforcement Gaps at the Compliance Division
The findings come from a 33-page report by the Department of Legislative Services, which examined the collection and monitoring practices of the comptroller's Compliance Division and Office of Law and Oversight, according to WBFF. The office, led by Comptroller Brooke Lierman, had not used all of its available collection methods to retrieve more than $600 million in unpaid taxes, the outlet reported, and had left more than 6,500 questionable returns uninvestigated. The state audit was released Wednesday.
Among the delinquent accounts identified in the report, 18,300 totaling $251.7 million had faced no wage garnishment or bank attachment as of February, according to the Baltimore Sun. Roughly 1,800 of those taxpayers went on to earn more than $50,000 in subsequent years and collectively still owed $25.5 million, the newspaper's reporting shows.
A Fast-Growing Backlog of Unpaid Taxes
The scale of the problem has been climbing for years. Maryland's total unpaid taxes rose from $1.03 billion in fiscal 2022 to $1.58 billion in fiscal 2025, an increase of more than half, per the same reporting. That trend line frames the audit's core complaint: even as the backlog grew, thousands of flagged accounts sat without the kind of aggressive follow-up, such as garnishing wages or freezing bank accounts, that the comptroller's office has at its disposal.
The Office of Law and Oversight, one of the two units scrutinized in the audit, receives about $51 million in funding, the report notes. That figure puts the uncollected sums in context: hundreds of millions in delinquent taxes went unpursued despite a compliance apparatus built specifically to chase them down.
Comptroller Points to License Holds and Record Collections
The comptroller's office has defended part of its strategy, noting that referring delinquent accounts to the Motor Vehicle Administration can block taxpayers from renewing their driver's licenses until they settle their debts. Officials credited that MVA referral approach with helping produce a record $679 million in personal income tax collections over the past fiscal year, even as the audit highlighted the accounts that slipped through without garnishment or bank attachment.
Maryland collected more than $5.8 billion in individual income taxes and more than $667 million in corporate income taxes during the fiscal year, underscoring the size of the state's overall tax base against which the unpursued $600 million stands out. The audit does not specify how much of that sum could ultimately be recovered, and the comptroller's office's full response to the findings was not detailed in available reporting.
