Digital Economy

Subscribe to Digital Economy via RSS

On July 3, 2025, the Colorado Court of Appeals held that sales of streaming video service subscriptions are subject to sales tax because they are sales of tangible personal property. Colorado imposes sales tax on retail sales and purchases of “tangible personal property,” which is defined as “corporeal personal property.” In 2021, the Department of…

Yesterday, the Comptroller of Maryland issued Technical Bulletin No. 59, laying out its position on the Digital Advertising Gross Revenues (ominously abbreviated as “DAGR”) tax base. As the DAGR took effect in January 2022, this guidance is not exactly timely. 

Much of Bulletin No. 59 is devoted to the Comptroller’s view of taxability. A…

Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Committee released its draft reconciliation bill. This bill, which will go through markup today, includes the “Artificial Intelligence and Information Technology Modernization Initiative.” The Committee proposes a 10-year moratorium on states and political subdivisions “enforc[ing] any law or regulation regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial…

Maryland is facing a $3 billion budget gap and is considering a host of tax hikes. On March 24, 2025, the Maryland House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations amended the state’s budget bill, House Bill 352 (cross-filed with Senate Bill 321) to include, among other things, a proposal to expand the sales and use tax…

On Friday, December 6, 2024, the Texas Comptroller held a public hearing in Austin, TX regarding the proposed changes to the data processing regulation (section 3.330) published in the Texas Register on September 13, 2024. Several parties submitted written comments in response to the proposed regulation, including the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association (TTARA)…

On October 9, 2024, the D.C. Tax Revision Commission met to finalize their tax recommendations to the D.C. Council and Mayor. However, the Commission did not reach a consensus and instead opted to perform additional research.

The D.C. Tax Revision Commission’s last activity was to issue a Revised Chairman’s Mark in July 2024. That document…

State efforts to obtain customer identifying information as part of digital goods audits have put a spotlight on data privacy concerns. State tax authorities often request customer names, addresses, telephone numbers, and even Social Security numbers and tax IDs, claiming this sensitive information is vital to determine how to source digital transactions.

In this article…

SALT Partner Jeff Friedman is pleased to join Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law’s Second Annual State and Local Tax (SALT) Forum on June 6. Hosted by the Graduate Tax Program, the forum will help answer critical questions of what is taxable in the digital economy. Jeff’s panel will help attendees understand “it” —…

On May 8, 2024, the California Senate’s Revenue and Taxation Committee held a hearing on S.B. 1327, which would impose a 7.5% tax on data extraction transactions in California. The committee passed the bill by 4 votes to 1. 

Peter Blocker, Vice President of Policy at CalTax, testified in opposition to the bill. He indicated…

On May 1, 2024, California Senator Steve Glazer, Chair of the Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee, unveiled another proposal to tax digital advertising. This time, Senator Glazer proposes to amend California Senate Bill 1327 to impose a 7.25% tax on “data extraction transactions in the state.”[1] This “data extraction transactions tax” (referred to as the…