Silicon Valley-backed Groups Sue Maryland To Kill Country's First-Ever Online Advertising Tax

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 revenue -- and stop other local governments from following its lead. From a report: 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. In the complaint, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Maryland, the tech giants and their political allies argue that the state's online advertising tax suffers from "many infirmities" and, as a result, threatens to "raise costs for consumers and make it more difficult for businesses to connect with potential customers."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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