We’ve reported before on Maryland’s Europe-style tax grab against the big tech companies and its obvious legal defects.  Now the state’s tax court has finally agreed.

We’ll believe this monster is really dead after the appeals, but for now here’s the good news as summarized by the Tax Foundation:

Last week, the Maryland Tax Court struck down the state’s first-in-the-nation digital advertising tax and ordered refunds covering five and a half years of collections…

It runs afoul of federal law: The Internet Tax Freedom Act bars singling out e-commerce while leaving comparable offline activity untaxed. By taxing digital ads but not billboards, newspaper ads, or TV spots, Maryland’s tax did exactly that. Any tax reaching only digital advertising faces the same problem.

It violates the Commerce Clause: Maryland set its graduated rates on a platform’s worldwide revenue, so the tax owed turns on activity entirely outside the state. The court found it flunked three of the four prongs of the Complete Auto test, not fairly apportioned, lacking external consistency, and bearing no fair relation to services the state provides.

It fails due process: The court held the tax fails the Due Process Clause’s requirement of a rational link between what’s taxed and a company’s in-state value.

But other than that, it’s great.