Driver's license in Michigan but worked and lived all year in California

[raheelk23]

My legal address and drivers license is all in Michigan but all of 2020 I paid rent and worked in the Bay Area California. Do i file taxes only in Cali or Michigan as well. My car is registered in michigan as well. I have not found the time to get a CA license or register my vehicle due to COVID and offices being closed. Plus I am not sure how much longer I am going to stay here

[xmasbaby0]

If you lived and worked in CA for all of 2020 then you file a CA tax return.   Your drivers license does not determine where you file your tax return.   Living and working in CA means you had CA sourced income that is taxable in CA.   If you did not live or work in MI at all in 2020 then the CA state return is the only state return you need to prepare and file.

Not being sure if you are staying in CA is not a factor in how you file for 2020.  For 2020 you say you were in CA.  If you leave CA sometime in 2021, that will affect your tax return for 2021 when you file in 2022.

[ToddL99]

You will have to file a CA return and pay CA tax on the money you earned working in CA.

If you still consider yourself a MI resident (i.e. you plan to return to MI in the foreseeable future), you will file a resident MI tax return and a non-resident CA tax return. MI will tax all of the income you earned in CA (plus any other income you may have had in 2020), but they will give you a credit (against MI tax) for the tax you paid to CA on the income earned there.

Complete the Personal Interview questions carefully, making sure that you choose that you were a resident of MI for the entire year but did "Earn Money in another state."

Also, you will need to complete the CA state tax interview in TurboTax before completing the MI state tax interview. This way, the program will have calculated your CA tax and know how much of a credit you will get toward MI tax.