Emerald Home Care, Inc. v. Department of Unemployment Assistance

This case concerns, as far as Petitioner can determine, the first law in American history that restricts taxpayers’ speech about a tax. It also concerns a taxing procedure that withholds adequate notice of the tax pending the execution of an attestation about the confidentiality of certain tax information and a promise to restrict one’s speech concerning that information. The questions presented are:

1. Whether assessing a tax but withholding notice of information fundamental and necessary for understanding the tax unless the taxpayer first executes a certification attesting that the information is confidential and promising not to disclose it, except under very limited circumstances, violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.

2. Whether assessing a tax but withholding notice of information fundamental and necessary for understanding the tax unless the taxpayer first executes a certification attesting that the information is confidential and promising not to disclose it, except under very limited circumstances, violates the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, made applicable to the States via the Fourteenth Amendment.

3. Whether a state law that puts federal constitutional and statutory rights into conflict violates the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution.