Supreme Court Refuses to Hear NH vs. MA Regarding Taxation of Remote Workers

reason.com

7 points·artful-hacker··4 comments

Hypothesis: the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, not because it didn't think it was important, but rather because:

1) MA policy on taxing NH workers for MA companies is set to expire anyway (so less urgency for this exact case)

2) It is a very important question which will come up again, and the Supreme Court wants to have lower courts thrash this out for a while first. This means it gets studied from every angle by more judges, and by the time the Supremes have their say, they can feel more confident that they have all the relevant facts on the table.

Generally, if you're an impatient, "hurry up, this is important" kind of person, you don't end up on the Supreme Court. All things considered, that's probably for the best.

I think you are right about the refusal, though it might be nice if the Supreme Court could just outright say as much "We don't want to hear this now, argue in lower courts first"

Though I must say, what is strange to me about this refusal though, is that it is a case between states. How can the Supreme Court refuse to hear a case between two states? What other court is there to go to?

Apparently two of the nine justices agree with you. However, since it might take them as long to rule on it as there is time left before the MA policy expires, there is an extra reason for them to ignore this one.

There are no valid lower courts for this to end up in. Lawsuits in which a state sues another state use the Supreme Court as their original jurisdiction. The Supreme Court is the first, and last, court for this to end up in.

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