Military Spouse Tax Filing for different state of legal residency

[Rmann18]

My husband and I are currently living in Hawaii. I am a legal resident of Maryland and he is a legal resident of Tennessee. From what I have read, I believe that I do not qualify for any spousal tax relief under SCRA. Does this mean I will have Hawaii taxes to file and Maryland taxes to file? I imagine I will also owe Maryland taxes. Any insight would be helpful! 

[TomD8 · Accepted solution]

If your husband is an active duty servicemember, Section 302 of the Veterans Benefits and Transitions Act of 2018 allows you to claim residency in his military State of Legal Residence (SLR) for purposes of state and local taxes, even if you never lived there.  The law went into effect for tax year 2018.

Thus if your active duty servicemember spouse's SLR is Tennessee, you may claim Tennessee residence for state taxes, thus relieving you of any state tax obligation in HI or MD.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/2248/text

For more details, see page 3 of this reference:  

https://www.jag.navy.mil/legal_services/documents/Info_Paper_2018_SCRA_Amendments.pdf

[Carl]

Take note that if your SLR does not tax personal income, then you do not qualify for the MSRRA and all non-military income earned from a Hawaii employer is fully taxable by the state of Hawaii.

[TomD8]

@Carl --  I do not believe that is correct.  See the  example in paragraph (4) on page 3 of this reference from Navy JAG (note in the example that the servicemember's SLR is tax-free Florida):  

https://www.jag.navy.mil/legal_services/documents/Info_Paper_2018_SCRA_Amendments.pdf

[Carl]

@TomD8 thanks for that info and the link. However, I'm having problems finding the actual VTBA information in an IRS rule or regulation on the IRS website. Any clues? Meanwhile, I'm still looking using serach terms such as MSRRA on the IRS website.

I'm looking for this because as you know, the only "authoritative" source on federal taxes is the IRS. While I'm not questioning the JAG information, they had to get that information from somewhere, as I'm sure they didn't go on what they heard through the grapevine.

[TomD8]

@Carl —. I don’t think you’ll find anything on the IRS website because VBTA 2018 has to do with state income taxes, not federal.