Whether the State of Illinois failed to provide the Petitioner taxpayer with a clear and certain post-deprivation procedure consistent with the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment

QUESTION PRESENTED This Court held in Reich v. Collins, 513 U.S. 106, 108 (1994) that “due process requires a ‘clear and certain’ remedy for taxes collected in violation of federal law.” The plain language of section 15(a) of the Illinois Estate Tax Act expressly provided jurisdiction and a basis for a taxpayer’s post-deprivation remedy consistent with Reich, but the Supreme Court of Illinois found that Petitioner’s constitutional and tax refund claims filed under this statutory provision were subject to state sovereign immunity. It determined that the Petitioner’s exclusive post-deprivation remedy was only available under a generic statutory provision requiring that payments be made under protest and that a complaint be filed and an injunction be secured within 30 days from the date of payment enjoining the transfer of the payment to the State Treasurer. In the event that an injunction is denied or is not otherwise obtained within 30 days from the date of payment, this statutory “protest fund” provision authorizes the immediate transfer to the state treasury of all monies paid under protest, even if the taxpayer should subsequently prevail on the merits of the suit, and thus does not necessarily remove the bar to recovery of state sovereign immunity. The question presented by this Petition is whether the State of Illinois failed to provide the Petitioner taxpayer with a clear and certain post-deprivation procedure consistent with the Due Process Clause of the ii QUESTION PRESENTED — Continued Fourteenth Amendment when it refused to give effect to the plain and unambiguous language of section 15(a) of the Estate Tax Act conferring jurisdiction upon Illinois’ trial courts to “hear and determine all disputes in relation to a tax arising under the Act,” including claims about the alleged unconstitutionality of the State’s retroactive application of the Estate Tax Act.