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Ohio Bill Would Repeal COVID Commuter Tax Provision

Posted on Aug. 17, 2020

An Ohio bill would repeal language from a coronavirus relief measure that allows cities to collect taxes from individuals working remotely because of the pandemic.

S.B. 352, introduced August 11 by Sen. Kristina D. Roegner (R), vice chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, would repeal section 29 of H.B. 197, which was enacted March 27 and requires work from performed at home to be treated as if it had been performed at work for municipal income tax purposes. The provision allows cities to continue collecting taxes from employees working outside their principal places of work because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The bill follows a lawsuit filed July 2 by The Buckeye Institute against the city of Columbus and the state. The suit argues that the provision violates due process requirements of both the U.S. and Ohio constitutions by preventing workers from entering their principal places of work in Columbus but taxing them as if they had.

“The law in this case is straight out of a dystopic novel: the state first prohibited workers from going into their offices during the Stay-At-Home order, then passed an emergency law absurdly ‘deeming’ all work that was actually performed at home to have been performed in the higher-taxed office location instead. It is a legal fiction, and it is unconstitutional,” Robert Alt, the institute's president and CEO, said in a July 9 release.

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