Supreme Court of Ohio Upholds Centralized Tax Collection

In a welcome decision authored by Justice Michael P. Donnelly, a majority of the Supreme Court of Ohio upheld the legality of state legislation that created a centralized system for the collection of all municipal business income taxes.

Municipalities argued the effort to centralize collections violated home-rule, but the Court found otherwise. The Court blocked the imposition of a small administrative fee to be levied on municipalities by the Ohio Department of Taxation.

The OMA has supported centralized collection of local taxes to promote tax simplicity. Here’s a short analysis of the decision by OMA tax counsel Justin Cook of Bricker & Eckler. 11/5/2020