Silicon Valley-backed groups sue Maryland to kill country's first-ever online advertising tax

Source: Washington Post

By Tony Romm
Feb. 18, 2021 at 1:53 p.m. EST

Top lobbying groups backed by Amazon, Facebook, Google and other technology giants sued Maryland on Thursday, seeking to scuttle a new state tax on their massive online-advertising revenues — and stop other local governments from following its lead.

The legal challenge contends that Maryland’s first-in-the-nation tax is unfair, unconstitutional and incompatible with federal laws that prohibit state policymakers from instituting levies specifically targeting online services.

The lawsuit is backed by a broad coalition of businesses nationwide through a series of trade groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Internet Association, a Washington-based organization that counts Silicon Valley’s most prominent companies among its members. It carries great legal and political significance at a time when lawmakers well beyond Maryland’s borders are starting to eye the tech industry’s eye-popping pandemic profits as a potential source of much-needed new revenue.

“In light of the current pandemic and economic uncertainty, increasing taxes on services used by small businesses to keep themselves running is a particularly poor and ill-timed policy,” Caroline Harris, the vice president for tax policy at the U.S. Chamber, said in a statement.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/02/18/amazon-facebook-google-maryland-lawsuit-tax/