Commonwealth Magazine article “Supreme Court stays out of Mass.-N.H. tax dispute” quotes Michael E. Porter

A recent case called on the US Supreme Court to take up New Hampshire’s challenge of a Massachusetts regulation requiring out-of-state residents working remotely during the pandemic to pay Massachusetts income tax.

The Supreme Court declined taking the case, without providing any comment on the court’s reasoning.

Hemenway & Barnes counsel, Michael Porter, said the decision means New Hampshire will have no further legal avenues in which to challenge the constitutionality of the regulation in an overarching way. Any New Hampshire residents who are working remotely and required to pay the tax could still challenge their individual tax payment through Massachusetts’ Appellate Tax Board, which is the state’s version of a tax court, which would then have to rule on the issue.

“These taxpayers are left to pursue their rights on an individual basis rather than on a collective basis,” Porter said.

Porter said some tax professionals had hoped the US Supreme Court would use this case to clarify rules in other states, like New York, Delaware, and Pennsylvania, which tax work done for in-state companies by out-of-state residents. But the court’s decision not to accept this case means that will not happen.

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