Supreme Court shuts down challenge to Massachusetts's work-from-home taxes
The Supreme Court shut down a New Hampshire challenge to Massachusetts's practice of taxing people who began working from home during the coronavirus pandemic.
The court declined to hear the case, which could have become a multibillion-dollar dispute, in an unsigned order on Monday. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito said that they would have heard arguments in the case.
DYING TOWNS IN A DEPOPULATING COUNTRY
New Hampshire brought the case to the Supreme Court directly, invoking the body's direct jurisdiction over interstate conflicts. It alleged that its neighbor's practice of taxing people who worked for companies in Massachusetts but who stayed home in the neighboring states of New Hampshire and Connecticut for much of the last year was unconstitutional.
New Hampshire, which does not have an income tax, said that Massachusetts was violating that Constitution's due process and commerce clauses by taxing people outside of its borders.
“The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has launched a direct attack on a defining feature of the State of New Hampshire’s sovereignty,” attorneys for New Hampshire told the court.
The court appeared poised to decline the case after the Biden administration filed a brief advising the justices not to hear it.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
If the court had heard the case, it could have touched on other states with long-standing rules for taxing people who work from home. The most prominent of these is New York, which continued to tax the more than 400,000 people who ceased to commute from New Jersey once the pandemic began.
New Jersey and Connecticut urged the court in an amicus brief to accept the case, saying that they are losing massive amounts of money to their neighbors each year.
Washington Examiner Videos
Tags: News, Supreme Court, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Tax, Coronavirus, New Jersey, New York
Original Author: Nicholas Rowan
Original Location: Supreme Court shuts down challenge to Massachusetts's work-from-home taxes
