In 2023 I had residences in Seattle, WA and Portland, OR. My wife and high-school age child live in Portland and my college age son lives in Seattle. I took a role with a large Seattle based employer in October 2022 that required I be onsite in Seattle (despite their having Portland offices) - we could not immediately move, so I leased a condo through the end of July with the intent of moving the remaining two family members to Seattle in the summer of 2023. Plans changed and I left the employer in mid-August, moved back to Portland, and retired. My employer only withheld Federal and WA leave/LT-care program taxes. My wife is a self-employed consultant incorporated in Oregon and is paid by 1099. So we will owe OR state income tax on all of her earnings for the year.
I met the criteria to be considered a WA resident for the first 7 months of the year, and exceeded the 200 days worked outside of Oregon as stipulated in the OR code. However, there is enough vague language in the OR code to have me concerned about an audit if I fail to do this correctly. Naturally the fact that WA does not have income tax makes this tricky.
My question for the experts out there is, will Oregon:
1. Consider the move temporary (this ambiguous word appears in the code frequently) and expect income tax to be paid on all WA based earnings?
2. Or...expect me to file as a part-time resident and pay income tax on ~40% of my earnings, despite the fact that $0 of those earnings were Oregon based or earned when I lived in Oregon?
3. Or...not care?
I've talked with a few CPAs already and have not arrived at any meaningful consensus, so I'm broadening my search radius for further advice/insights. Thank you!
