Montgomery County enacts ridiculous new tax provision

Anyone who has bought or sold real estate in this area is surely familiar with the transfer/recordation tax that shows up as a pesky additional cost to both buyers and sellers on the Hud-1 Settlement Statement. Depending on the jurisdiction and purchase price the tax percentage varies but it is ALWAYS a percentage of the sales price. Now, Montgomery County has decided to raise revenue by taxing the amount the seller owes on the property in short sale situations (short sales involve a purchase price that nets the seller less than what he/she owns on the property- and requires bank approval). This is difficult in many ways because it not only increases closing costs for buyers who may only have so much cash to bring to closing, and it makes it impossible for lenders to give an accurate good faith estimate of what closing costs will be because often information about what a seller owes on the property is not readily available. What the folks at Settlement Pros have advised us is that buyers should write language into the contract that additional transfer/recordation tax on anything above the purchase price is to be paid by the seller.