In an unanimous decision, the Supreme Court upheld the requirement that medical residents pay Social Security taxes. As we noted in our prior posts on this topic, full-time students that work in addition to attending school are generally exempt from paying such taxes. However, in the Court’s opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts, the interpretation by the Internal Revenue Service of the law requiring residents to pay such tax was a reasonable one. The Court did not agree with Mayo Clinic’s argument that like full-time students, medical residents attend lectures and perform lab work in the course of learning and thus should not be responsible for paying the Social Security tax. The stakes in this case range from upwards of $700 Million payable by approximately 100,000 medical residents across the country.
Wall Street Journal, Tax on Medical Residents Upheld by Court