Maryland – SALT Savvy

Massachusetts Joins the Digital Advertising Tax Wave

April 11, 2021 By Maria Eberle, Lindsay LaCava, Mike Shaikh, Mark Yopp, Dmitrii Gabrielov and Joshua Lin 5 Mins Read

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.

Texas Lawmaker Introduces Digital Ad Tax Bill: How Does It Stack Up to Maryland’s?

March 24, 2021 By Maria Eberle, Lindsay LaCava, Mike Shaikh, Mark Yopp and Joshua Lin 5 Mins Read

Texas has now joined the growing number of states proposing digital advertising taxes that we have covered previously on SALT Savvy, including Maryland’s first-in-the-nation digital advertising tax law and other proposals from Connecticut, New York, and Montana. This new Texas bill—H.B. 4467— would take effect in 2022. The Texas proposal is very similar to the recently-enacted Maryland digital ad tax (H.B. 732) and would impose a new “digital advertising tax” on annual gross revenues derived…

Maryland Passes Digital Advertising Gross Revenues Tax after Overriding Veto

February 12, 2021 By Maria Eberle, Lindsay LaCava, Mike Shaikh, Mark Yopp and Dmitrii Gabrielov 4 Mins Read

Last March, the Maryland General Assembly passed House Bill 732, which imposed a new “gross revenues tax” on digital advertising services. Governor Larry Hogan vetoed the bill in May. Earlier today, the Maryland State Senate completed the General Assembly’s override of the Governor’s veto, making the Maryland digital advertising tax the first of its kind in the United States. House Bill 732 adds a new tax (imposed in a new Title 7.5) to the Tax…

New Year, New Digital and Data Tax Proposals

February 11, 2021 By Maria Eberle, Lindsay LaCava, Mark Yopp and Dmitrii Gabrielov 6 Mins Read

State legislators have already proposed a number of digital and data tax bills in 2021, some of which are new proposals while others reintroduce proposals from previous legislative sessions. The proposed bills fall into one of three categories: taxes on digital advertising services, taxes (or fees) targeting social media providers, and taxes on the sale or monetization of personal data. Most of the proposals are in the early stages, but a Maryland bill originally introduced last year is moving closer to a legislative vote on whether to override the governor’s veto.