Maryland's Controversial Tax on Digital Advertising Explained
Washington’s sales tax on advertising services takes effect October 1, 2025, and comes in two forms: a tax on digital automated services and a tax on retail sales of advertising services. Both impositions apply to digital...more
On July 3, 2024, the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland dismissed a First Amendment challenge to Maryland’s Digital Advertising Gross Revenues Tax (the “Tax”) holding that while a provision in the Tax scheme...more
The Digital Advertising Services Tax Law passed the California Assembly Committee on Privacy and Consumer Protection with a 6-3 vote on April 23 and is now pending before the California Assembly Committee on Revenue and...more
Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen’s ambitious plan to provide $2 billion in property tax relief via an increase in the sales tax rate and an expansion of the sales tax base is stirring significant debate. Part of his proposal is...more
Last fall, when a Maryland County Circuit Court held that the Maryland Digital Ad Tax violated the dormant commerce clause, the supremacy clause, the Internet Tax Freedom Act, and the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution,...more
A Maryland state court invalidated the state’s first-in-the-nation tax on digital advertising (Maryland Digital Advertising Tax) earlier this week. Enacted in February 2021, the Maryland Digital Advertising Tax was...more
In a brief filed on April 29, 2022, the Maryland Attorney General’s Office (Attorney General) agreed that the “pass-through prohibition” of the state’s digital advertising tax “does not purport to impose any restriction on...more
Maryland and Ohio courts disagree on whether taxing billboards violates the 1st amendment. Will the Supreme Court weigh in? How will this affect the surge of interest in targeted taxes on digital advertising? Matt Hunsaker...more
Part 1 of this series discussed the proposals adopted by various countries to impose taxes on the digital economy, particularly by taxing various types of digital advertising and other digital services. These taxes allow...more
Matt Hunsaker breaks down the latest state tax news including a discussion of tax arguments in a controversial civil war era statue removal case, the Texas Supreme Court's decision to hear Sirius XM's apportionment case, and...more
Massachusetts has proposed a digital advertising tax. Matt Hunsaker breaks down the new proposal (and an old proposal to conduct a study before enacting a tax) and compares and contrasts it with Maryland's infamous digital...more
Last week, we reported on Maryland’s new gross receipts tax on revenues derived from digital advertising services (the “Tax”), the first of its kind in the nation. Affected taxpayers and tax practitioners alike can breathe a...more
Maryland recently enacted the nation’s first tax on digital advertising. The new tax, the Digital Advertising Gross Revenues Tax (the “Tax”), became law on February 12, 2021. The Tax has been surrounded by controversy from...more
Maryland enacted a state tax on digital advertising gross revenues on February 12, after overriding the governor’s veto. The passed law, which is the first of its kind in the United States, imposes “a tax on certain annual...more
Overriding the governor’s veto of H.B. 732 (2020), the Maryland Senate on February 12, 2021 passed the nation’s first state tax on the digital advertising revenues pulled in by large companies. This development follows...more
On February 12, 2021, the General Assembly of the State of Maryland enacted legislation imposing the Digital Advertising Gross Revenues Tax, overriding a prior veto of the legislation by Maryland Governor Larry Hogan. The Act...more