On April 12, 2021, Maryland legislators passed Senate Bill 787, which proposed several significant amendments to Maryland’s digital ad tax (see Maryland Passes Digital Advertising Gross Revenues Tax After Overriding Veto). Governor Larry Hogan declined to take action with respect to signing or vetoing Senate Bill 787. As a result, the legislation automatically became law, effective May 12, 2021. Most notably, Senate Bill 787 delays the effective date of the digital advertising tax to tax…
The City of Chicago recently issued nexus guidance and a limited safe harbor for City tax purposes in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s pivotal South Dakota v. Wayfair ruling and the State of Illinois’ statutory economic nexus standards. True to form, the City implemented its new nexus standards by executive action via publication of a “nexus and safe harbor” “information bulletin” on its website (available on the City’s website, here), as opposed to the Chicago City Council more formally (and more appropriately) adopting a new ordinance.
The Multistate Tax Commission (“MTC”) is set to revamp its transfer pricing collaboration and enforcement initiatives following the first public meeting of its State Intercompany Transactions Advisory Service (“SITAS”) Committee in over four years. At the end of last year, the SITAS Committee appointed its new Chair- Krystal Bolton, who is also an assistant director at the Louisiana Department of Revenue’s field audit income tax division. On March 23rd, Ms. Bolton hosted representatives from state revenue agencies, practitioners, taxpayers, and other members of the public in a virtual conference to overview the history of the SITAS Committee and to present the results of a multistate survey regarding intercompany transactions and transfer pricing.
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.