Maryland Digital Ad Tax Cases Will Offer Clarity on Federal Law

Apple Inc., Google LLC, and Peacock TV LLC‘s challenges to Maryland’s unique digital advertising tax will give a state judge a chance to flesh out a seldom-used federal law barring discriminatory taxes.

The tech and telecom giants say only taxing online ads runs afoul of the federal Internet Tax Freedom Act, which prohibits states from taxing electronic commerce if they don’t tax “similar” analog technology, such as billboards.

ITFA has been around since 1998, but Congress never designated an agency to interpret it via regulations and little case law has explained exactly how similar the technologies must ...