National Might get New Stadium

Loudoun eyes P-Nats as ballpark tenant


By Robert Daski
Published: December 14, 2009
Updated: December 14, 2009

The Potomac Nationals might get a new stadium—in Loudoun County.

A pre-application has been submitted by a representative of Comstock Loudoun Station L.C. in Reston to build a stadium in Loudoun for the P-Nats.

The request would put the new stadium in Loudoun Station, a community in the Dulles District.

"The application has to be reviewed by the staff and reviewed by the planning commission and reviewed by the board of supervisors," said Valerie Suzdak, aide to Loudoun County Board of Supervisors Dulles District representative Stevens Miller. "It is somewhat of a lengthy process."

Suzdak said the application calls for the purchase of property near a Metro station. Morefield Station is set to be a future Metro Silver Line site near the proposed stadium.

The Carolina League franchise has called Pfitzner Stadium home since 1984, but has sought an upgraded facility for many years.

"The Potomac Nationals are dedicated to trying to create the best possible environment for its fan base in Northern Virginia to watch baseball," Potomac Nationals owner Art Silber said. "We're pretty proud that our fan base is throughout Northern Virginia."

Silber said P-Nats ownership has enjoyed positive relationships to either improve Pfitzner or put together a deal for a new stadium. He would not comment "on any individual area" where the team could build a new stadium.

Prince William Board of County Supervisors Chairman Corey Stewart said the board could not do anything to prevent Silber from moving the team. But Stewart does want the team to remain in Prince William.

"The team is very important to the families of Prince William County who love baseball," Stewart said. "It's a great family past time. I think the community would be very saddened to see the team leave."

Stewart said county officials have explored sites to build a new stadium in the county.

"We've looked at sites off of I-95 and Prince William Parkway," Stewart said. "We've looked at sites at Davis Ford Road and Prince William Parkway and we're looking at sites on Innovation at [Va.] 28 and the [Va.] 234 bypass. [We want the stadium to have] more visibility and easier access. It has to have visibility and has to be located on a major roadway."

Stewart also said the economic downturn has put plans for a new stadium on hold. He said it will be unlikely a stadium will be built in 2011.

"The county has been working with the team over the past few years to get a new site," Stewart said.

"The team has been working to find financing for a new stadium. If there's anything we can do without a significant expenditure of taxpayer dollars to find a new location to help obtain financing for a new stadium, the board would be very interested in that."

Stewart said the county government cannot fund a new stadium while cutting back on every county service.

"Mr. Silber understands that," Stewart said. "He understands the situation the county is in. He's committed to Prince William county. He loves this county, but he's got a team to look after."

Monday, December 14, 2009, 6:23am EST

Slow going for Silver Spring transit center
More than a year into construction, progress has been slow at the Paul S. Sarbanes Transit Center in Silver Spring. For about 10 months, the bulk of the work involved utility relocation, including coming up with an approach that would avoid major work on nearby Colesville Road, according to The Washington Post.

Solving the logistical issues has taken its toll on the construction schedule, the Post reported. The project is three or four months behind schedule but should be done in early 2011.

Monday, December 14th 2009

Estate tax on brink of problematic repeal
Kent Hoover Washington Bureau Chief
The House passed legislation that would permanently extend this year's estate tax rates and exemptions, but the Senate may not act on the bill before Jan. 1.

If an estate tax bill isn't enacted by then, the federal tax on inherited assets would go away in 2010. The tax, however, would be scheduled to return in 2011 at much higher rates and lower exemptions.

Everyone agrees that doesn't make sense, but that's the situation Congress created in 2001, when it passed a 10-year tax bill that gradually phased out the estate tax. At the time, supporters of estate tax repeal hoped they could win permanent repeal before the tax returned at 2001 levels in 2011.

Now, as 2009 draws to a close, permanent repeal is off the table. And with the Senate stuck on health care reform, it's not clear whether that chamber will address the estate tax's future before the end of the year.

"I don't know how they solve it," said Clint Stretch, managing principal, tax policy, for Deloitte Tax LLP in Washington, D.C. "My guess is that they do."

If they don't, "we're in a bit of a touchy situation," said Will Fuller, senior estate planner and director with the law firm Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabkin in San Francisco.

Small biz wants high exemption

The House voted 225-200 Dec. 3 to make the current estate tax rate of 45 percent permanent and exempt $3.5 million of assets from the tax. No Republicans voted for the bill.

"Death should not be a taxable event," said Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo., the ranking Republican on the House Small Business Committee.

Drew Greenblatt, president of Marlin Steel Wire Products in Baltimore, said his family shouldn't have to pay a 45 percent tax on his assets when he dies because his income already is taxed at an 35 percent annual rate. The estate tax forces him to spend thousands of dollars a year on insurance policies, he said, money that could be used to hire additional workers.

"We make an insurance company rich because I don't want to give my wife a $2 million tax bill the day I die," Greenblatt said.

Many groups representing family-owned businesses agree the estate tax is unfair and should be repealed, but they're willing to settle for permanent estate tax legislation that would reduce the tax rate to 35 percent and raise the exemption to $5 million.

Plus, they want the exemption to be adjusted for inflation. Otherwise, more Americans would be subject to the tax every year. Bill Rys, tax counsel for the National Federation of Independent Business, said the estate tax exemption needs to be high enough so that it's not an issue for small businesses.

"It shouldn't be something that small business owners have to stay up at night and worry about," Rys said.

Nearly all small business owners, however, already are exempt from the estate tax, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. It points to a study by Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center that found that only 100 small businesses and farm estates would owe any estate tax next year if the 2009 exemption is continued.

Tax lapse would be messy

Allowing the estate tax to lapse Jan. 1 would create its own set of problems, especially if Congress reinstated it later in the year.

For one thing, it's not clear if Congress could apply the tax retroactively to the estates of people who died during a period when death wasn't a taxable event. Any attempt to do so likely would be challenged in court.

Stretch said a temporary lull in the estate tax also could have "a perverse impact" in situations where a wealthy individual is receiving extraordinary life-prolonging medical care. Family members could make their decisions on when to pull the plug based on estate tax reasons.

"It's a very morbid prospect," Fuller said.

Also, estate tax repeal isn't attractive as it seems, because the 2001 law coupled repeal with a change in how capital gains are calculated for heirs. So-called "carryover basis" tax rules would be enacted. That means heirs would have to pay capital gains taxes on inherited assets based on the price that their dead benefactor paid for them, instead of the assets' value at the time of the decedents' death. That would expose heirs to much higher capital gains taxes and force them to try to figure out what an asset was worth decades ago.

Because of this change, "many, many small businesses" would be better off with an estate tax at 2009 levels than they would be under repeal, said Paula Calimafde, a Bethesda, Md., attorney who chairs the Small Business Council of America.