On January 29, Connecticut Rep. Josh Elliot, D-Hamden, and twenty-four other co-sponsors filed proposed HB 6187, which proposes to establish a 10 percent tax on the annual gross revenues derived from digital advertising services in the state for any business with annual worldwide gross revenues exceeding $10 billion. The proposed bill calls for the revenue of this new tax along with several other revenue-raising measures in the proposed bill to be used to provide a one-time direct payment of $500 to individuals who experienced economic hardships due to the COVID-19 pandemic and received unemployment compensation during certain periods in 2020.
Because Connecticut legislators may introduced legislation as a short statement in non-statutory language, HB 6187 lacks the formal statutory language normally expected. The Joint Committee on Finance, Revenue and Bonding will now consider the proposed bill and determine if it should be sent to the Legislative Commissioners’ Office for full drafting of the bill’s text.
Connecticut will now join those states considering a tax on digital advertising, including Maryland and New York.