California non-resident U.S. diplomat

[peterjmcsharry]

I am a California resident posted overseas with the U.S. Foreign Service.  I have been outside California the entire calendar 2016 year.  I understand California has an exemption from state income tax for U.S. diplomatic personnel serving overseas.  How do I handle that on Turbo Tax?

[luis2]

Same situation here. I'm guessing that you listed CA as your State of Residence. I did this and could not manage to get TurboTax to even offer the option of filing 540NR (non-resident). I finally got the software working, by doing the following:

On the "Personal Information" tab, I answered the State of Residency question as "Foreign Territory or U.S. Possession". Then in the "Other State Income" section, I listed California. This triggered TurboTax to include the CA state taxes. In the State Taxes tab, TurboTax will ask all the appropriate questions to determine if you need 540 or 540NR.

Good luck!

[JohnC11]

When you're going through the Question/Answer phase with TurboTax, it will ask you pretty much everything necessary.  We have experts working with State professionals to stay on top when States introduce new regulations that affect our consumers.

In your situation it will ask specifics regarding work outside of the United States, and since your in a State with specific regulations regarding Diplomatic Personnel serving overseas, it should have no issue including this and calculating your taxes correctly.

If for any reason it reflects you didn't get that exemption for your State return, contact us so we can look closer what's happening.  You're posting in the TurboTax Deluxe section, which translates to Tax Support is provided as a service in that package.

I'd go through the entire tax preparation as normal, if there is an issue later we need to revisit one of my team can do so when you're signed on to your account when you reach out to us...if it's necessary.  If so:

•Click Contact in the upper-right corner of your screen.
•Ask "I want my money refunded"
•After submitting, you'll see questions on the left (ignored) and a contact button on the right.
•Click the contact button
•Two options, choose Call/Call back.
•You'll be connected to one of my team directly, or we'll call you back.

We'll resolve this together.