Class-action Lawsuit Over Md. ‘Piggyback Tax’ Dismissed

The plaintiffs claimed the state wrongly changed the law to lower the amount of interest it would owe people who became entitled to tax refunds after the Supreme Court, in May 2015, found unconstitutional a state law barring Marylanders from deducting from city or county taxes any income tax they paid to other states on money earned there.

But Baltimore City Circuit Judge Yvette M. Bryant dismissed the lawsuit Jan. 16, holding the plaintiffs had to exhaust a administrative remedies first and should have filed suit in Maryland Tax Court instead of the Circuit court.

“It’s a case that we certainly anticipated would have to be resolved by the Court of Appeals eventually anyway so we’re going to appeal,” said Andrew D. Levy of Brown, Goldstein & Levy in Baltimore, one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers.