Maryland’s new digital tax

[Mike Mercury]

Tech groups are suing to halt Maryland’s new digital services tax

An early standoff for state-level taxes on digital ads.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/18/2...et-association

A coalition of tech and business groups have joined together for a lawsuit challenging Maryland’s newly passed digital services tax, as first reported by The Washington Post. The lawsuit, filed in federal district court in Maryland, argues the state tax is preempted by federal law and violates various constitutional prohibitions against state taxes on out-of-state activity.

The lawsuit is led by the US Chamber of Commerce, which is joined by three tech industry groups: Internet Association, NetChoice, and Computer & Communications Industry Association. Membership varies, but all three associations count Google, Facebook, and Amazon as members, as well as other tech giants.

The Maryland law would establish a new gross revenue tax on digital advertising undertaken by non-media companies — targeted squarely at the ad revenue collected by tech giants like Facebook and Google. The tax rate varies depending on the size of the company, but it would range as high as 10 percent for companies with global annual revenue higher than $15 billion.

Prior to passage, a number of state politicians raised concerns about the legality of the bill — most notably Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh, who identified “some risk that a reviewing court would find that the tax is unconstitutional” in a public letter in April.

Maryland Gov. Lawrence Hogan opposed the bill, but the state’s General Assembly overrode his veto to pass it into law on February 12th. The tax is set to go into effect 30 days after passage unless the lawsuit’s injunction is successful.

Digital tax proposals have become increasingly common as tech giants have grown more profitable and less popular — but the taxes remained hotly contested by the tech industry. A UK digital service tax passed in 2020 resulted in enterprise rate hikes from many US tech companies, while the staggered implementation of France’s digital services tax has sparked a standoff with US trade officials.

Then-presidential candidate Andrew Yang proposed a US digital services tax as part of his 2020 primary campaign, but the idea has failed to gain traction among US lawmakers.

[04 commemorative]

IB4

[Mike Mercury]

[VITE1]

Better image

[Bill]

Originally Posted by VITE1

Better image

Is it better, though? Is it really?

[Torqaholic]

Income received from running advertisements already has to be declared as income for tax purposes. Sounds like they're trying to set up an extortion/protection racket.

[Rodnok1]

Let them tax the shit of of fakebook and the like. Better than us paying the taxes.

[the new me]

Was snide here yet?

[snide]

Originally Posted by bill_daniels

Is it better, though? Is it really?

A screenshot is always better than a photo of a screenshot.

[snide]

Originally Posted by the new me

Was snide here yet?

Nope. But you still failed for not posting an amusing meme.

[dvarapala]

Originally Posted by the new me

Was snide here yet?

Originally Posted by snide

Nope. But you still failed for not posting an amusing meme.

[04 commemorative]

Originally Posted by the new me

Was snide here yet?

Sadly....

[the new me]

Originally Posted by the new me

Was snide here yet?

Originally Posted by snide

Nope. But you still failed for not posting an amusing meme.

Forgive me. I did not realize a meme was required.

The new me thought IB4S was either the 4th type of irritable bowel syndrome or a form of conceptual art being bandied about by alleged Corvette enthusiasts, so I took a shot at the latter. The new me said to myself: What about word paintings like this:

(BLAH BLAH BLAH, 2016, artist Mel Bochner, this painting can be yours for only $29,500 but will consider a trade plus dogecoin for a C5 in need of paint/bodywork)
or this:

(Something Happened, 2017, artist Kay Rosen, price not listed, thus priceless)

and what if the forum itself was the canvas and instead of painting words, the new me used digital type instead. That would make it a word-painting-meme with a zen-like question at its heart. So that's what I did. Maybe if it was in bold or italics it would have been more museum-quality. And if I had put this underneath it:
(TVB word-painting meme, 2021, artist the new me) along with a price tag of something like a cancelled Statue of Liberty postage stamp, I would be famous already and no doubt be represented by an online gallery somewhere in the the digital slums of San Francisco or New York.

In any case, the new me has been appropriately chastised and promises to do better, if it is at all within my capability. Which seems unlikely, but you never know.

TL/dr: TL/dr.

[snide]

Originally Posted by the new me

TL/dr: TL/dr.

[dwjz06]

Chit hole State

[snide]

Originally Posted by dvarapala