Tax Blog/Blawg

The Quality Stores employment tax refund case was argued before the Supreme Court on January 14, 2014.  An explanation about the issue at stake can be found in prior Taxblawg.net postings.  Although the outcome of the case remains in doubt, the possibility of a taxpayer victory means that employers should start thinking about the need to satisfy an important prerequisite to qualify their claims for refund.

Employment (FICA) taxes have both an employer and an employee component. A taxpayer victory in Quality Stores will enable both employers and terminated employees to recover their ...

The U.S. Supreme Court today accepted the government's petition for certiorari in  United States v. Quality Stores (Civil No. 10-1563, 6th Cir. 2012), a case in which the Sixth Circuit affirmed a lower court’s decision that supplemental unemployment compensation benefit (SUB) payments are not taxable as wages and are consequently exempt from FICA taxes.  In accepting the case for consideration, the Supreme Court is expected to resolve a conflict between the Sixth Circuit and the Federal Circuit, which decided a prior case,  CSX Corp. v. United States, 518 F.3d 1328 ...

In a blog posting earlier this year, we talked about the Sixth Circuit's decision in United States v. Quality Stores (Civil No. 10-1563, 6th Cir. 2012) affirming a lower court’s decision that supplemental unemployment compensation benefit (SUB) payments are not taxable as wages and are consequently exempt from FICA taxes. The Sixth Circuit’s decision in Quality Stores directly conflicts with the Federal Circuit’s prior decision in CSX Corp. v. United States, 518 F.3d 1328 (Fed. Cir. 2008), which held that such payments were subject to FICA.  For many employers who have filed ...