Maryland receipt requirements

Sales tax at a glance

State rate

6%

Combined with local

6% statewide, no local add-on

Sourcing

Destination-based — tax follows the buyer's address

Does tax have to be separately stated?

Maryland expects the tax stated separately from the taxable price on the receipt. There are no local sales taxes, so a single 6% line covers general retail.

Whatever the rule, print it as its own line. Separately stating tax is what lets a reviewer isolate the pre-tax cost, and it is the mechanism most state statutes use to let a seller exclude the tax from gross receipts. The display conventions are covered here.

Exempt and specially rated categories

• ·Groceries for home consumption exempt
• ·Prescription and most non-prescription drugs exempt
• ·Alcoholic beverages taxed at a higher rate
• ·Medical supplies and devices exempt

A basket that mixes an exempt item with a taxable one needs a per-line tax flag and separate taxable and non-taxable subtotals, or the tax line cannot be checked against the lines it came from.

Rent receipts in Maryland

No Maryland statute requires a written receipt for rent. Maryland's receipt duty runs to security deposits instead — a landlord must give a written security deposit receipt, and owes the tenant a penalty for failing to — so a rent receipt is customary but not compelled. Some local jurisdictions impose their own rent receipt rules.

The two fields landlords most often omit are the period the payment covers and the unit number. The full field list is here, and the statutory format is in the rent receipt spec.