Columbus, OH – The Buckeye Institute filed a second amicus brief in Ohio v. Yellen calling upon the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio to grant a permanent injunction to stop enforcement of the federal tax mandate, which was included in the American Rescue Plan Act. This second Buckeye brief argues that recent guidance from the U.S. Treasury Department fails to cure the deficiencies of the ambiguous and unconstitutional tax mandate.

“As The Buckeye Institute argued in its initial brief, and the Court agreed, ‘the Tax Mandate does not meet the floor for clarity that the Spending Clause imposes on federal legislation offering money to the States,’” said Robert Alt, president and chief executive officer of The Buckeye Institute. “After-the-fact guidance by the Treasury Department does not fix the constitutionally-broken law. The Constitution requires Congress—not the Treasury Department—to draw clear lines when encroaching on State sovereignty. Because Congress failed to draw clear lines, Buckeye urges the Court to permanently enjoin enforcement of the Tax Mandate.”

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UPDATE: On July 1, 2021, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio blocked the Biden Administration’s tax mandate that prohibited states accepting federal COVID relief funds from enacting tax cuts. The decision agrees with The Buckeye Institute’s two briefs in the case which argue that the tax mandate is fundamentally unclear and therefore unenforceable and that the treasury secretary cannot fix Congress’s error through regulatory action. See Buckeye’s statement reacting to the decision here.

UPDATE: On November 18, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that “Ohio failed to establish a justiciable controversy,” and that “[r]egardless of standing, the controversy is moot.”