The Attorney General’s Office recently filed a petition with the Supreme Court requesting that it review a ruling by the Maryland Court of Appeals that could cost local government approximately $50 million a year. As reported by the Baltimore Sun (limited free views available):

Maryland provides credits for taxes that are paid to other states but does not extend those credits to the local portion of the state taxes that is used to partly fund counties and Baltimore. Brian and Karen Wynne, a Howard County couple, contested the second part of the law and the state’s top court ruled this year that it violates the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

In a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court, the attorney general’s office said the nation’s top court has long recognized the power of states to tax the entire income of their residents and called the Maryland high court’s finding “unprecedented.”

“The Constitution furnishes no basis for invalidating Maryland’s long-standing tax system or casting doubt on the validity of similar regimes maintained in other states,” the state’s lawyers wrote in the filing.

MACo has been following this case very closely over the past year and a summary of all actions leading up to the petition being filed with the Supreme Court can be found on Conduit Street.  The petition filed with the Supreme Court can be found here.