The recent ruling by the Maryland Supreme Court on the state’s digital advertising tax is not the victory that some politicians in Annapolis would like Marylanders to believe. In reality, our highest court’s refusal to consider the merit of a law that has already been ruled unconstitutional is much more likely a harbinger of the law’s coming defeat.
Let me be very clear: The Maryland Supreme Court has not ruled on the constitutionality of this law, despite what some might have you believe. The only time a Maryland court has ruled on the law’s merits was in 2022, when Anne Arundel County Circuit Court when Judge Alison Asti found it unconstitutional.
That court ruled the law violated the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on state interference with interstate commerce and violated the federal Internet Tax Freedom Act, which prohibits discrimination against electronic commerce. The Supreme Court did reverse the lower court’s previous ruling, but it did so based on procedural grounds. As the Democratic leadership in Annapolis knows full well, this issue is very likely heading to a different Maryland court.
Politicians who support this tax are fast to claim that they’re taking on Big Tech and getting faceless corporations to “pay their fair share.” Yet, in reality, the revenue from this tax will come directly from the pockets of Maryland businesses of all sizes. In today’s increasingly digital economy, that includes the small, women, and minority-owned businesses that these very same politicians purport to defend.
