Columbus, OH – The Buckeye Institute secured a victory for Anthony Alfieri—a South Carolina resident—against the city of Cleveland, when the city refunded Mr. Alfieri more than $18,000 in income taxes illegally taken in 2021 and 2022. 

“As with The Buckeye Institute’s client Dr. Manal Morsy, Cleveland had no legal authority to tax income Mr. Alfieri earned while working at his home in South Carolina,” said Jay R. Carson, senior litigator at The Buckeye Institute and the lead attorney representing Mr. Alfieri. “In issuing Mr. Alfieri a refund, Cleveland has done the right thing.”

Mr. Alfieri’s victory follows a win The Buckeye Institute secured for Dr. Manal Morsy in May 2024, when Cleveland agreed to 1) fully refund the taxes it illegally took from Dr. Morsy, 2) pay the interest owed to her according to Cleveland City Ordinance, and 3) reimburse her court costs.

Mr. Alfieri lives in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina— more than 750 miles south of Cleveland. Before retiring in 2021, he worked remotely from his home in South Carolina for a financial services company based in Cleveland, brokering deals that earned him commissions once the deal closed. Given the nature of this work, it was not uncommon for deals to take several months or even years to close. Mr. Alfieri typically received his commission income several months or years after he performed the work that generated the commission.

In 2023, Mr. Alfieri received several commission payments for deals he brokered in 2020-2021. Despite the fact that one has to drive through four states to get to the Alfieri home, the city of Cleveland taxed his income under Ohio’s pandemic tax law, which deemed all work performed in 2020 to have been performed in the office location. When Mr. Alfieri requested a refund for his work in South Carolina, the city refused and, to add insult to injury, the city adjusted his filings for 2020, 2021, and 2022, essentially clawing back the refunds he received previously. 

The city knew its actions were unconstitutional. In 2015, Cleveland lost a similar case. In Hillenmeyer v. Cleveland Board of Revenue, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that “[l]ocal taxation of a nonresidents’ compensation for services must be based on the taxpayer’s location when the services were performed.” Moreover, Cleveland abandoned its appeal in Morsy v. Dumas and refunded the taxes illegally taken from Dr. Manal Morsy. 

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