Maryland Ad Tax Free-Speech Claim Scrutinized by Federal Judge

A federal judge grappled Tuesday with the question of whether Maryland’s restriction on tech companies passing costs from the state’s controversial tax on digital advertising directly to customers violates the businesses’ free-speech rights.

The First Amendment issue is all that remains in the federal court case, after Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby of the US District Court for the District of Maryland ruled in March that the bulk of the legal challenge, led by the US Chamber of Commerce, belongs in state court.

“We’re in the same place we began,” Griggsby said at the end of a 90-minute hearing. The ...