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,…
The Supreme Court has denied review of New Hampshire’s lawsuit against Massachusetts seeking to invalidate the latter’s controversial personal income tax sourcing regulation. The Supreme Court’s highly anticipated decision was likely influenced by the acting U.S. Solicitor General’s amicus brief arguing against the Supreme Court taking up the case. The Supreme Court has thus passed on reviewing the broader issue of whether and to what extent a state may impose its personal income tax on…
Connecticut legislative leaders recently announced support for a digital advertising tax (“Connecticut Digital Advertising Tax”) proposed by the Connecticut Joint Committee on Finance, Revenue and Bonding (the “Finance Committee”). Connecticut joins Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, and Texas, among others, as states with concrete digital advertising tax proposals on the table (and in Maryland’s case, an enacted law).
State legislators in the Massachusetts House of Representatives recently introduced four bills on the taxation of digital advertising services. Two of these bills propose a tax on digital advertising services, a third bill would set up a “special commission” to study how to generate revenue from digital advertising, and a fourth bill appears to be a placeholder for some action on digital advertising taxation. This makes Massachusetts one of the latest states to join the wave of state digital advertising tax proposals targeting large digital advertising service providers. We have previously covered Maryland’s digital advertising tax, the first in the nation to become law, and various other states’ pending digital and data tax proposals, including New York and Texas. Below, we summarize and compare the various Massachusetts proposals.