I would concur with that procedure.
When you do the NC non-resident tax return, you will have to have all the Federal portion of your taxes completed first...every scrap, but not yet filed.....before you even think of starting the NC non-resident part.
Then when you do the NC non-resident tax return Q&A, it WILL (initially) use all your Federal income, but then you will get to indicate what portion was NC-Source while you were a non-resident....and indicate that NC-W-2 as such. Then you will be asked about all the other types of income, like interest, dividends, capital gains etc....and those will normally be all zero's....even if it is a Bank or Credit Union account still in NC. The only other thing I can think of that might still be NC-source income, while non-resident...is if you have a rental property or business still located in NC that you get income from.
By doing that, the NC forms will FIRST calculate the total tax calculated for ALL your income, and then multiply it by the fractional amount that you indicated was NC-source.
....so if it calculates an NC tax of, say, $10,000 on ALL your income, and you indicated that ~5% was from NC sources during the Q&A, then it multiplies 10,000 x 0.05 or $500 as your tax as a nonresident.
____________*Answers are correct to the best of my knowledge when posted, but should not be considered to be legal or official tax advice.*
