GeoffreyG
New Member

State tax filing

Your short answer is no, you don't.  For a longer answer, please continue reading.

If you live and work in Texas (and this applies to telecommuters too), then it actually doesn't matter where your employer may be based.  It could be Minnesota, Georgia, or even Paris France.  As an individual, you don't have to file a tax return or pay taxes in your employer's home state (or country), or in the state where they may happen to have a payroll office (hence the address on your W-2).

Really, all you need to do is report and pay taxes on what you earn from your employment in the state(s) where you actually live and where you work.  In your case this is Texas, but as you probably already know, Texas is one of the few states that has no personal income tax system.  Thus, a Texas state return is not required.  Don't be concerned, for income tax filing purposes, what the employer's address on your W-2 indicates.

In other words, an employer's corporate address or headquarters that is different from the state(s) in which you live and work, has no actual meaning or effect on how you file your personal income tax return.  Thus, you don't need to input an answer in TurboTax that you made money in any another state, simply because of where your employer is based.  That's not what it means to have or earn income in more than one state (although we can certainly understand and appreciate the confusion if you haven't faced this issue before).

Let's work through another example for clarity.  Say that Mary lives and work in Kansas, but her employer is headquartered in North Carolina.  Furthermore they have a payroll office in Minnesota that issues her a weekly paycheck and mails her a W-2 at the the end of the year.  In this situation, she only has to file a tax return and pay taxes in Kansas.  She can and does ignore North Carolina and Minnesota for tax reporting purposes.  Hopefully, that logic and this explanation will help to clarify things.

In conclusion, as you can see, it makes all the difference for personal income tax reporting where you are working and living; but it does not matter where your employer is located.

Thank you for asking this important question.

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