Who Needs to File New York State Taxes?

Figure out if you need to file a New York return and then take care of it on RapidTax

There are three categories of people who have to file a New York State return: residents, nonresidents, and part-year residents. All three categories have different reasons for filing.

Residents

New York residents are pretty much those people who live permanently in New York State. Officially a resident is anyone whose domicile is in New York or whose domicile is not in NY but who maintained a permanent place of abode in NY for more than 11 months of the year and spent at least 184 days here.

Obviously there are exceptions, but they are relatively few and far between. You can find the definition of a resident and the exceptions here.

Generally New York residents must file Form IT-201 Resident Income Tax Return if they were also required to file a federal return. They must pay tax on ALL of their income no matter where it was earned.

In certain cases you may have to file a NY return even if you didn’t have to file a federal return, such as when your federal adjusted gross income plus New York additions is more than $4,000 ($3,000 for single people who can be claimed as a dependent by someone else).

Nonresidents

Nonresidents are people who live in a state other than New York.

Nonresidents must file Form IT-203 Nonresident and Part-Year Resident Income Tax Return if they had New York source income. This includes people who commute to New York for work as well as a variety of other circumstances. You can see the full definition of New York source income here.

However, you do not need to file a return if your New York adjusted gross income (the federal column of line 31 on Form IT-203) is less than your NY standard deduction (which depends on your filing status).

Part-year residents

Part-year residents are those who moved into or out of New York during the tax year. Generally as a part-year resident you must file Form IT-203 Nonresident and Part-Year Resident Income Tax Return if you had any income during the period when you were a resident or any New York source income during the time you were a nonresident.

Other reasons to file

There are a variety of other reasons why you may have to file a New York return, even if you don’t fall into any of the categories above, including if

• NYS, NYC, or Yonkers taxes were withheld from your pay and you want to claim a refund
• you want to claim refundable or carryover credits
• you’re subject to NYS minimum income tax
• you had a net operating loss for NYS personal income tax purposes, but not for federal tax purposes

If you do need to file a New York return, you can do so right here on RapidTax. We’ll take care of your federal and state returns at the same time.

Photo via Vincent on Flickr.