These procedures and instructions are designed to improve communications within the department and improve our ability to uniformly interpret the tax laws of Maryland. Directives concerning the Department will be issued in a standard format for the use of each employee, or interested property owner. Each local Supervisor of Assessments is responsible for maintaining a copy of these procedures that is readily available to his staff and for the use of the public.

Procedures will be issued and controlled by a numbering system on a standard format document by category, subject, and topic.

• Category - The major classification controlled by a unique three- digit number.
• subject - The intermediate classification controlled by a unique three-digit number.
• Topic - The minor classification controlled by a unique three- digit number.

The date of issuance will be recorded on each directive. Pages will be numbered by Topic and will be in the format exemplified by page 1 of 3, or 1 of 5. This will ensure that complete copies are received. In addition to a date of issuance, a date of revision will be used when necessary.

Numbering of the directives will adhere to the following pattern and will be tabbed as follows: