Don’t like the added taxes Gov. Martin O’Malley is proposing? Not to worry. Delegates have proposed taxes on dozens of other services to choose from.

The House Ways and Means Committee heard the case for new or higher taxes on dozens of items and services in a six-hour hearing Saturday.

The list includes consumer service such as rental cars, auto repair, barbers, hair dressers, and dating services, and professional services such as engineering, architecture, tax preparation, exterminating and direct-mail advertising.

Lobbyists, business owners and associations representing all the potentially taxed services sought to kill the measures.

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“They’d be considered as amendments to the governor’s bill,” said Committee Chairwoman Sheila Hixson, who said “we were surprised that no citizens showed up” to testify against the tax increases or expansions. She said that was true even on the well-publicized hearings earlier in the week.

John Sullivan, a CPA with offices in Anne Arundel and Howard counties, called it “a very black day for Maryland” tax accountants and said it was “unfair, unjust and unreasonable,” especially since legal services were excluded.

The tax opponent who drew the most laughter was longtime lobbyist Bruce Bereano, representing the Maryland Coalition of Tattoo and Body Piercing Establishments.

“It’s a tax on culture,” Bereano said. Humans have been decorating their bodies for thousands of years, he said. “It’s a way of life.”

Architects, engineers, surveyors, landscaper architects and interior designers were out in force to oppose a new tax on their services. Broadening the sales tax to those services raises $139 million, the largest single item among the 31 categories of services added that will bring in $540 million.

Mark Hasslinger, an Annapolis architect who heads the state Council of Design Professionals, said, “We will have no choice but to pass these taxes on to our clients.”

Sen. David Brinkley, the Senate Republican leader who opposes all tax increases, urged the committee to consider only the four services proposed by O’Malley — health club memberships, tanning, massage and real estate management.

llazarick@baltimoreexaminer.com