Vote Smart's Synopsis:

Vote to pass a bill that authorizes employees to apply for tax refunds paid to cities they do not live in for remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Highlights:

• Establishes any day on which an employee in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, performs personal services at the employee's home, or other location that is not the employee's principal place of work will be deemed to be a day performing personal services at the employee's principal place of work (Sec. 1.A).

• Specifies nothing in this law prohibits an employer from assigning an employee to a new or different work location that can result in a change to the employee's principal place of work (Sec. 1.B).

• Specifies nothing in this law prohibits an employer from withholding tax on an employee's qualifying wages (Sec. 1.C).

• Specifies this law applies only for the purposes of municipal income tax withholding and for apportioning or situsing the employer's net profit, and not for purposes of determining the location at which a nonresident employee's work was completed, services were performed or rendered, or activities were conducted for the purpose of determining the employee's municipal income tax liability (Sec. 1.D).

• Specifies if an employer withheld and remitted municipal income tax from an employee's qualifying wages earned between March 9, 2020, and December 31, 2021, to the municipal corporation in which the employee's principal place of work is located, the employer will not be assessed any tax, penalty, or interest by any other municipal corporation for failure to situs or apportion those wages to the other municipal corporation for municipal net profit tax purposes or for failure to withhold municipal income tax from such wages to the other municipal corporation (Sec. 3).

• Prohibits this act from being construed to affect the interpretation and applicability of that section to qualifying wages withheld in 2020. Such withholdings will be governed by that section as enacted by that act and not by the amendment to that section by this act (Sec. 4).

• Specifies a tax administrator may not require, as a condition for processing the request, any statement or other documentation from the employer other than a statement verifying the number of days the employee worked at the employee's principal place of work during the taxable year and that the employer did not refund any withheld taxes to the employee (Sec. 5).

Full Bill Text