Columbus, OH – On Monday, The Buckeye Institute filed its reply brief with the Ohio Supreme Court in Schaad v. Alder, responding to the city of Cincinnati’s arguments, which ignore the fact that Ohio’s emergency-based local income tax system is incompatible with the Due Process protections afforded by the U.S. and Ohio constitutions.

“Not only has the city of Cincinnati completely ignored Mr. Schaad’s Due Process rights, but it ignored the Ohio Constitution’s provision, which allows the General Assembly to limit, not expand, municipal taxing authority. And adding insult to injury, Cincinnati argued that when House Bill 197 expanded municipal taxing beyond the city’s jurisdiction, the bill was actually a ‘limitation’ on the city’s authority,” said Jay R. Carson, senior litigator at The Buckeye Institute and an attorney representing Mr. Schaad. “I suppose it is appropriate that an Orwellian law—one that deemed work performed outside a city to have been performed within a city’s jurisdiction—is accompanied by an equally Orwellian argument that an expansion of municipal taxing authority is instead a limitation.”

Schaad v. Alder is pending before the Ohio Supreme Court, and it is one of Buckeye’s five cases challenging House Bill 197’s unconstitutional overreach. The Buckeye Institute’s other cases challenging House Bill 197’s constitutionality are:

• Buckeye v. Kilgore;
• Denison v. Kilgore;  
• Curcio v. Hufford; and
• Morsy v. Dumas.

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