Need to file state taxes when you live and work in different states?
Most people in the U.S. live and work in the same state, which makes state taxes pretty easy to understand – you pay taxes to the state where you live and work.
But what if you live in one state and work in another? Do you pay taxes to the state where you live? Where you earn an income? Both?!
You need to pay taxes to both. Most likely you will end up having to file a resident return in the state where you live and a nonresident return in the state where you work.
Resident return
Generally you need to file a resident return in the state where you are a permanent resident. This state has the right to tax ALL of your income, wherever it was earned.
Nonresident return
After you file your resident return in your home state, you then need to go about filing a nonresident return in every other state where you earned money. A nonresident return only taxes you on the money you earned in that state. What often happens is that you withhold some income for each state tax.
Let’s take a real-world example.
Let’s say you live in New Jersey and commute to your NYC job Monday through Friday. Come tax time, you would need to file a resident return in NJ (reporting all of your income) and a nonresident return in NY (reporting only the income you earned in NY).
Worried about being double-taxed? Don’t be. You will have an opportunity to claim a credit for taxes paid to the nonresident state. They will then divide whatever has been withheld between them and the state whose tax liability was not exactly met will either give you a refund or a tax bill.
States without an income tax
There’s always an exception to the rule. In this case, there are seven exceptions. The five states with no income tax and the two states that only tax interest and dividends are the exclusions:
- Alaska
- Florida
- Nevada
- South Dakota
- Texas
- Washington
- Wyoming
- Tennessee
- New Hampshire
If you live in one of these states, you don’t need to file a resident return (unless you live in TN or NH and have interest and dividends income). But if you work in a state that does have an income tax you have to file a nonresident return in that state.
The same holds true when the situation is reversed. If you live in a state with an income tax, you must file a resident return there. But if you work in a state without an income tax, you don’t have to worry about filing a nonresident return.
Sound complicated? There’s a reason for that: it is. But let’s not stress because here’s all you really need to know. For this to work, every state needs to make agreements with every other state covering the income they could both theoretically tax. These agreements are structured to generate a minimum amount of paperwork and special cases: instead of having some workers who lives in a state but doesn’t pay taxes, the states have someone who lives in the state and pays taxes like everyone else — but gets a special tax credit at the end of the year.
In a situation like this, it’s often best to talk to your payroll department about how to proceed. In places with many out-of-state commuters (like New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, as well as cities near state borders), they will have the details on how each state treats out-of-state income.
Even if you have to file multiple state tax returns you can take care of them right here on RapidTax.
I live in colorado and work remotely from home. Company is in Ohio. I did onsite work for 3 weeks in ohio, the rest of the work was done remotely in CO. State taxes were taken out for Ohio. How do I file?
Hi Bud,
You will file a resident return for Colorado and a non-resident return for Ohio.
Hi!
My situation is: I live in Colorado. From January to July I worked and lived in Colorado and from July to December I worked from home for Indiana, living in Colorado.
So, from what is written here I’ve understood that I should file my resident Colorado taxes (including all my earnings in both jobs) and then file Indiana’s non-resident taxes with the income generated by my new job in Indiana.
Then it is written that I should claim credit for the taxes that I’ve already paid to another state through withholding. That will be the taxes related to the income generated in Indiana? And when and how should I claim for that?
Thanks a lot,
N. Rodriguez
Hi N.Rodriguez,
Yes, that’s right, file your resident return for Colorado and a non-resident return for Indiana. Basically, if you are taxed twice, you can get credit for the double taxed amounts. The state section of our website is specifically designed for situations like yours. When you are filing on your own is where it gets complicated. You will simply follow step-by-step on our website and will receive the maximum refund possible.
My daughter lived in WA state, she has lived in WA her whole life) from 1/1/13 to 8/31/13. She moved to CA on 9/1/2013. She works for the same company (Starbucks) in both states. She is working and is in the process of getting her one year residency so that she can apply to a CA college this coming fall and pay CA residency tuition As you know, WA state does not have an income tax. My question is what form in CA does she complete and should she complete this as a resident or a non-resident?
Hi Pat,
Your daughter will most likely need to file a part-year resident return for CA, reporting her income to CA. The reason she would file a part-year resident return is because she moved from WA to CA (and therefore considered a resident for part of the year).
However, it’s good to note, if she lists her primary residence as WA, then she can instead file a non-resident return for CA (since she spent more time during the tax year in the state of WA) and would therefore be considered a WA resident.
If she files on our website, the application is designed for this type of situation to be straightforward and simply to complete. (Basically, she would check a box stating she earned income from an additional state and would then enter the CA income.)
Best of luck!
Hi! I had a quick question. If you live in Idaho and Work in Wyoming(no state income tax) do you have to pay idaho state income tax for the amount made? When I endered the W-2 for Wyominh the state refund do went up a lot.
Hi Jessica,
It depends on Idaho’s taxation laws. Regardless, you should include the W-2 information for your Wyoming income on your Idaho resident return.
My wife & I are legal residents of AZ, which has a state income tax. She took a job and moved to Texas (no state income tax), living there 11 months out of the year in 2013. What are our tax consequences for the State of Arizona with her income? Should we file separate returns to offset these consequences (or is that even an option?)?
Thank you
Hi Kevin,
You should file separate state returns. If your wife received any income from AZ sources, she should file a non-resident return for AZ, reporting that income. She won’t have to file a resident return for Texas because they don’t have an income tax.