Tax Analysts: Professor Ed Zelinsky “is continuing his challenge against New York’s taxation of income he earned while working remotely from Connecticut during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

In a December 1 petitioners’ brief in Zelinsky v. Commissioner of Taxation and Finance of the State of New York, Edward Zelinsky and his wife claim the New York State Tax Appeals Tribunal allowed the state to incorrectly tax wages paid to Zelinsky by a New York employer for work performed in Connecticut.

The brief follows a petition filed by the couple in July, which asked the New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division, Third Department, to annul the tribunal’s May decision upholding the allocation of his taxable wages under the convenience of the employer rule to New York and denying the couple’s 2019 and 2020 refund requests.

Law360: Prof Asks NY Panel To Negate Tax On Conn. Remote Work

A two-decade-old precedent upholding New York state’s taxation of a professor’s work at home in Connecticut doesn’t justify New York’s taxing of his remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic, he told a state appeals court Monday.

“Indeed, it is difficult to envision a more unconstitutional tax than an income tax levied by a state whose governor forbade the nonresident taxpayer from using his New York office and classroom for the period in question,” Zelinsky told the New York state Appellate Division in a brief.

Bloomberg: Law Professor Asks NY Appeals Court to Rethink Telework Taxation

“Rather than admit the gubernatorially-compelled unavailability of the petitioner’s New York office and classroom during COVID, the Tribunal invents a new version of the employer convenience doctrine,” Zelinsky argued in his opening brief. He referred to the New York Tax Appeals Tribunal’s statement that the case “boils down to whether the employer established a nexus in another jurisdiction by directing its employee to perform personal services in that out-of-state location for its own necessity.”