The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that an online retailer was not required to collect and remit the state’s sales and use tax prior to the United States Supreme Court’s 2018 decision in South Dakota v. Wayfair because its use of apps, cookies, and content delivery networks (CDNs) did not create “physical presence” nexus, as required prior to the Wayfair decision, and the Wayfair “economic nexus” standard could not apply retroactively. U.S. Auto Parts Network,…
On October 17, 2022, a Maryland state judge in the Circuit Court of Anne Arundel County struck down the state’s Digital Advertising Tax (“Digital Ad Tax”) as violating the Internet Tax Freedom Act (“ITFA”) and the Commerce Clause and First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Comcast of California/Maryland/Pennsylvania/Virginia/West Virginia LLC, et al. v. Comptroller of the Treasury of Maryland, Case No. C-02-CV-21-000509 (Md. Cir. Ct. Anne Arundel Cnty.). The judge issued her ruling from the…
A new lawsuit filed by Wayfair, LLC in Jefferson County Court (Colorado) seeks to address a question left open by the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 2018 Wayfair decision that permits states to impose a sales or use tax collection obligation based on an economic nexus threshold: Does this decision apply to locally-administered sales or use taxes? While many localities have asserted that the same economic nexus standards should apply at the state and local levels,…
California’s long-anticipated market-based sourcing “guidance” is finally out. Legal Ruling No. 2022-01 provides the Franchise Tax Board’s take on how to find the market in certain business-to-business sales. Though the guidance emphasizes that a seller should look to where its direct customer receives the benefit of sales of services, it keeps with current market-based sourcing trends amongst states and directs taxpayers to source such receipts based on the location of the taxpayer’s customer’s customer. The…