Ohio: Supreme Court accepts appeal challenging centralized administration of municipal net profits taxes
We have been following a legal challenge to the new process in Ohio for businesses to file their municipal net profits tax returns centrally with the Ohio Department of Taxation rather than with separate municipalities. On Aug. 6, 2019, the Ohio Supreme Court accepted an appeal taken by over 140 municipalities from a Franklin County Court of Appeals decision upholding the centralized process. The court accepted jurisdiction to review the following proposition of law:
The Home Rule Amendment [to the Ohio Constitution] grants municipal corporations a general power of municipal taxation, and where a State law engulfs municipal corporations’ general power of taxation, that State law is unconstitutional.
The case now advances towards briefing and oral argument with a decision from the Ohio Supreme Court likely sometime next year.
BACKGROUND
Due to the heavy administrative burden businesses face to comply with many municipal income taxes in Ohio, the General Assembly enacted a law change in 2017 that allows for the centralized administration of the municipal net profits tax. The Department of Taxation estimated that business taxpayers could save up to $800 million per year in compliance costs under the new process.
Under the new law, business taxpayers have the option of filing one municipal net profits tax return with the Department of Taxation through the Ohio Business Gateway and having the tax administered there. That means the tax department would perform audits and hear initial appeals. Municipalities still administer the municipal income tax for individuals, municipal employer withholding tax, and municipal net profits tax for non-electing taxpayers.
COURT OF APPEALS REJECTS LEGAL CHALLENGE
A coalition of municipalities brought a legal challenge to the new state law allowing for the centralized collection process, as well as a 2014 state law (House Bill 5) that promoted uniformity in municipal income taxation. Primary among their concerns are the potential loss of tax revenue and the 0.5 percent fee the tax department receives for administering the centralized collection process. The fee, however, compensates the tax department for its administration services and presumably reduces the costs to municipalities to administer their net profits taxes.
The legal theories that municipalities advanced contested the new collection process and other tax law provisions on the ground that the laws unconstitutionally interfere with local control over taxation and municipal “Home Rule” powers. Article 18, Section 7 of the Ohio Constitution allows municipalities “all powers of self-government,” including the power to tax. Another constitutional provision, however, allows the Ohio General Assembly to “limit the power of municipalities to levy taxes.” The crux of the dispute in the case centered around the definition of the word “levy” and whether it included the centralized collection process at issue.
The Tenth District Court of Appeals in Franklin County issued a decision on January 30, 2019 rejecting the municipalities’ legal challenges. The Appeals Court similarly rejected a motion for reconsideration on April 4, 2019. That led the municipalities to file an appeal on May 20, 2019, which the Supreme Court accepted on August 6, 2019. We will keep you posted as developments in the case arise.
