Tax News

CCH (cch.taxgroup.com) reports:

  The Ohio Court of Appeals determined that the Ohio commercial activity tax (CAT), when applied to gross receipts from the wholesale sale of food and from the retail sale of food for human consumption off premises where sold, operates as, and is, an excise tax levied or collected upon the sale or purchase of food, and therefore violates Secs. 3 and 13 of Article XII of the Ohio Constitution.

  The Court of Common Pleas for Franklin County, Ohio, had previously ruled that the CAT did not violate the state constitution because it ruled that the CAT was a franchise tax, which was a type of excise tax, imposed on the privilege of doing business in the state, and was not an excise tax "levied or collected upon the sale or purchase of food."