Columbus, OH – On Monday, The Buckeye Institute filed its brief with the Ohio Supreme Court in Kresevic v. Kimmel, asking the court to accept the case and reverse the lower court rulings, telling the city of Akron that a settlement package Ms. Kresevic received from a former employer does not represent wages and is therefore not subject to the city’s municipal income tax.

“Under the lower court interpretation of Ohio law, Ohioans must challenge a city’s refusal to provide a municipal income tax refund before the city has determined how much tax is owed and before the city has refused to issue the refund,” said Jay R. Carson, a senior litigator at The Buckeye Institute and one of the attorneys representing Ms. Kresevic. “This ‘sentence first—verdict afterwards’ logic defies common sense.”

In its brief, The Buckeye Institute contends that this case affects the rights of every Ohioan who pays municipal income tax and that, if the lower court rulings are allowed to stand, it will allow cities to evade Ohio law. The Buckeye Institute argues that the trial court erred in determining that Ms. Kresevic filed her claim outside the one-year statute of limitations. Akron contends that the statute of limitations clock began to run in June 2021, when Ms. Kresevic received her settlement payment. In fact, according to the city’s own tax ordinances and forms, the clock began to tick on July 11, 2022, when Ms. Kresevic received a denial of her refund request. The trial court further erred when it determined that Ms. Kresevic “voluntarily” paid the tax because she requested a refund on Tax Day 2022, rather than on the day her employer withheld the tax from her settlement. Ms. Kresevic agreed that her employer would classify the payments as W2 “wages” for convenience. The settlement payment was not income “for work done, services performed or rendered, or activities conducted in the Municipality” as outlined in Akron’s Municipal Code.

Kresevic v. Kimmel was originally filed in the Summit County Court of Common Pleas. Stay up to date on the case at: BuckeyeInstitute.org/KresevicvKimmel.

# # #