Chrysler Group lost a bid in bankruptcy court to recover an alleged $50 million overpayment of state unemployment insurance premiums, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Michigan, Illinois and Indiana base an employer's unemployment insurance taxes on the number of claims the company was responsible for causing in the three preceding years. Chrysler has been controlled by Italy's Fiat S.p.A. since its 2009 bankruptcy and Fiat gained full ownership of the U.S. automaker this year. Chrysler Group, or New Chrysler, asked a bankruptcy court to declare that the sale-approval order barred the states from using the so-called experience rating of the old Chrysler, or Old Carco LLC. In an opinion last week, Bankruptcy Judge Stuart Bernstein said that the federal Tax Injunction Act deprived him of the authority to decide the dispute. That statute bars a federal court from preventing the collection of state taxes so long as there is a "speedy and efficient" state-court procedure to challenge the levy, the judge said.
