Buckeye Reporter

Columbus, OH – The Buckeye Institute has successfully secured a tax refund exceeding $18,000 for Anthony Alfieri, a resident of South Carolina, from the city of Cleveland. The refund relates to income taxes that were unlawfully collected in 2021 and 2022.

Jay R. Carson, senior litigator at The Buckeye Institute and lead attorney for Mr. Alfieri, stated, “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.” He added that the city’s decision to issue the refund was appropriate.

This outcome follows a previous victory for Dr. Manal Morsy in May 2024 when Cleveland agreed to fully refund her taxes, pay interest as per local ordinance, and cover court costs.

Mr. Alfieri resided in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina—over 750 miles from Cleveland—and worked remotely for a financial services company based there until his retirement in 2021. His work involved brokering deals which often took months or years to finalize, leading him to receive commission payments long after the work was completed.

In 2023, Mr. Alfieri received commissions for deals brokered between 2020 and 2021. Despite being located far from Ohio, his income was taxed by Cleveland under a pandemic-era law that deemed all work performed in 2020 as office-based work. When he sought a refund for work conducted from South Carolina, the city initially refused and further adjusted his filings for multiple years.

The actions of Cleveland were contrary to precedent set by Hillenmeyer v. Cleveland Board of Revenue in which the Ohio Supreme Court determined that nonresidents' compensation should be taxed based on where services were performed. Additionally, Cleveland had already abandoned an appeal in Morsy v. Dumas and refunded similar taxes taken from Dr. Morsy.