U.S. Xpress

1 This case requires us to decide whether the Tax Administration Act permits the courts to recognize the doctrine of "vicarious" or "virtual" exhaustion of remedies to allow a class action to proceed when only a few members of the proposed class have exhausted their administrative remedies. Because the Tax Administration Act provides the exclusive remedies for tax refunds and requires the taxpayer to individually seek the refund, we decline to adopt vicarious or virtual exhaustion for proceedings under the Tax Administration Act, and reverse the opinion of the Court of Appeals. We affirm the district courts finding that the numerosity requirement of the class action rule is not met in this case because the court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over proposed class members who have not exhausted their administrative remedies.