The taxation of nonresident professional athletes—commonly referred to as the “jock tax”—has generated significant legal scrutiny. States and municipalities have adopted varying methodologies to allocate and assess income earned by athletes who temporarily perform services within their jurisdictions. This column compares two pivotal cases from Ohio and Pennsylvania that address the constitutional boundaries of such taxation.
The Ohio Supreme Court’s decision in Hillenmeyer v. Cleveland Board of Review marked a pivotal moment in the judicial scrutiny of municipal taxation schemes targeting nonresident professional athletes. By invalidating Cleveland’s “games played” allocation method on due process grounds, the Court emphasized that local tax authorities must tether their assessments to actual in-jurisdiction activity.
Click the media link below to read “From Hillenmeyer to the National Hockey Case: A Broader Constitutional Reckoning for Jock Taxes,” co-authored by Breen M. Schiller for the Journal of State Taxation.