The Buckeye Institute is filing a third legal mandate to protect taxpayers from Biden’s tax mandate
April 30, 2021
Columbus, OH – On Friday the Buckeye Institute filed its third Amicus letter Call on the courts to protect taxpayers from the federal tax mandate contained in the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). The most recent ARPA-related brief was filed in West Virginia against Yellen in the United States District Court for the Northern Division of the Northern District of Alabama. In addition to West Virginia and Alabama, other plaintiffs are the states of Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah.
“After the Ohio leadership, 13 more states are rightly challenging the Biden administration’s attempts to disregard its authority to manage their own affairs,” said Robert Alt, president and chief executive officer of the Buckeye Institute. “The American Rescue Plan Act’s vague and indefinite requirement that states relinquish the unprecedented authority to determine their own tax policies is unenforceable and is a gross disregard for the basic principle of federalism on which this country is built.”
As with two previously filed pleadings Ohio v. Yellen and Arizona v. Yellen The Buckeye Institute agreed that Congress lacks the power to usurp the state tax authority and also noted that given the vagueness of the text in the ARPA, the court does not have to rule on this issue. “Regardless of the extent of the power of Congress in this area in the summary, this regulation falls far short of the clarity that Congress needs to intervene in the traditional sovereign authorities of states.”
Buckeye’s letter highlights serious issues raised by the federal tax mandate, including Alabama’s annual sales tax vacation; West Virginia’s recently enacted Senate Draft 693, which aligns state tax legislation with federal tax law; and New Hampshire’s proposed corporate tax cut and proposed room and meal tax cut. “Any tax cut or change in fiscal policy – or almost any policy – could affect government revenues and thus violate the tax mandate or not. Nobody knows, that’s exactly why the court has to revoke the ARPA tax mandate, “said Alt.
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