How is "Non-Maryland Income" calculated for part-year resident?

[ccrook2020]

Every reply I've seen so far is not sufficiently accurate.

I lived in Maryland for a month and a half before moving.  I have two W2s - one for PA, where I moved, and one for MD.

Which of the following is my "non-maryland income" based off of: 

1.  the Maryland "State wages, tips, etc" (W2 Box 16) subtracted from:

• Gross pay
• W2 Box 1 (wages, tips, other comp)

Or

2. State wages, tips, etc for the non-Maryland state? (W2 Box 16)

I can't find any straight answers about what exactly is "non-maryland income", and most of the links to Maryland's tax website from Google are broken.  The instruction PDFs are also ridiculous complex and basically require filling out the entire 502 form, which I thought is what Turbotax is supposed to be helping me do.  The fact that TurboTax doesn't elaborate or calculate what goes into this field is pretty disappointing, considering they know the dates I lived in each state.

Any clarity or help would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks in advance.

[TomD8]

To answer your question, we need to know the state(s) in which you worked, as well as the states where you lived.

Where did you work when you lived in MD?

Where did you work after you moved to PA?

[ccrook2020]

I worked in DC while living in MD.  I still work for the same company, but work remotely from PA now.

[MarilynG1]

Your 'non-Maryland income' is any income NOT on a W-2 with code MD in Box 15, or income earned while you were not a Resident of Maryland. 

If the two-letter state abbreviation is not shown on your W-2 in Box 15, you can add it when entering your W-2s into TurboTax.  This alerts TurboTax what state the income in Box 16 belongs to. 

If you paid taxes to DC while living in Maryland, you will need to file a Non-Resident return there, and get credit on your Maryland return for tax paid to DC. 

You are correct that you may need to to do some calculations if your two W-2s don't specifically  allocate the Maryland and Pennsylvania income with MD and PA in Box 15.

Either of the two methods you suggest would work.  Subtract MD income from total, and balance is 'non-Maryland income'. 

Click the link for more detail about Filing Part-Year State Returns.

[Al816]

Thanks for your answer.

Question with my scenario: I moved from DC to MD on Aug 12, 2019 and worked at the same company throughout 2019.  So I have a W2 that shows my DC state wages/tips (in Box 16) and and another W2 that shows my MD state wages/tips (in Box 16).

However when you add DC wages/tips (Box 16) with MD wages/tips (Box 16)...the sum do not equal the

total wages, tips, other comp. in Box 1...and in fact the sum is about $6k less than that of Box 1.

So going back to the original question, should I be using the DC-Box 16 as my "non-Maryland income"?  Or the difference of Box 1 and MD-Box 16?  

Thanks!

[BillM223]

The question is "why do the two state wages numbers (box 16) not add up to the amount of wages in box 1?" 

You say that you have two W-2s from the same company. Are the amounts in box 1 of each W-2 your total wages for the year (including from both states)? If so, then this presents a problem, in that if you enter both of these, your federal income will be doubled.

Or is the Box 1 amount in each W-2 supposedly the amount of wages earned in that state? If so, why would the box 1 amount be different from the box 16 amount?

Normally, an employer would give you one W-2, with two rows of information entered on boxes 15-17, one row for MD and the other for DC. I wonder why your employer did not do that. Are you working for different divisions of the company?

My answer is tempered by the fact that I am not sure what your employer intended by creating these W-2s. Could you give us sample numbers of the W-2s that aren't real but are sort of representative of what you got?

If you can, please give us for each W-2:

Box 1

Box 3

Boxes 15, 16, 17

Thanks.

[Al816]

So I actually got three W2s from the same company...(1) TOTAL STATE, (2) DC, (3) MD.  Thanks for any help you can provide.

W2 (TOTAL STATE)

Box 1 - 71954.11

Box 3 - 83954.11

Box 15 - (blank) / TOTAL STATE (Employer's state ID no.)

Box 16 - (blank)

Box 17 - 4340.75

W2 (DC)

Box 1 - 71954.11

Box 3 - 83954.11

Box 15 - DC

Box 16 - 55166.24

Box 17 - 3139.00

W2 (MD)

Box 1 - 71954.11

Box 3 - 83954.11

Box 15 - (blank)

Box 16 - 10268.82

Box 17 - 1201.75

[BillM223]

OK, three W-2s is not going to work. If you enter all three box 1 amounts, you are going to triple your income.

Why did your employer give your three W-2s? This is not appropriate.

So, ask your employer:

1. Why did they give you three W-2s? The IRS is going to think that they paid you over $200k.

2. Why did they put $4340.75 in box 17 of the first W-2? This is not correct - they did not pay this amount to either state (yes, I realize that it is the sum of the two states' amounts, but you don't report it that way - you report the amounts separately).

3. If they paid you for working on two states over time, why do the box 16 amounts not add up to the box 1 amount? What is the other income (about $5k) that they are not allocating to either state?

Honestly, they have totally fouled this up. 

You should have one W-2, with two rows in boxes 15-17, with MD on one row and DC on the other, with the box 16 amounts adding up to the box 1 amount.

Since they have sent copies of this to the IRS, you need to get them to issue a corrected W-2 as I just outlined above, being sure to tell the IRS that the other two W-2s are to be deleted.

[Al816]

So looking at it more carefully, I guess it's one single W2...but with three versions.  (1) W2 - Federal Filing Copy, (2) W2 - DC State Reference Copy, and (3) W2 - MD State Filing Copy.  Sorry for the confusion.

So I'm pretty sure IRS is just getting a single "wage" from Box 1...and not the accumulation of all Box 1s.

Also the company uses ADP  for their payroll...so I'm assuming that the W2 is legit, just a different way of differentiating federal and state taxes and not the itemized multi-line in Boxes 15-17 you are describing.

Regardless, DC (Box 16) + MD (Box 16) should equal Box 1...which it is not.  I have just sent my company a request to look in to the discrepancy.

Thanks!

[armando50]

I moved from Texas and moved to Maryland in December of 2024 and worked that month and filed my Maryland State tax return on January 9th of 2025 using TurboTax and when I filed I believe I filed to early and I left out my W-2 and it told me I was getting a refund of $474 which I believe is wrong because I didn't add the right information my W-2 and put my residency as part year, but I just received my W-2 from the state of Maryland and had to amend my return and add that W-2 I received, and It tells me I owe $352 and when amending that return I didn't put my residency as non-resident I accidentally put Full year residency and I don't know exactly what to do at this point because my wages, tips, and other compensation on my W-2 of Maryland are $144.00 and I had no federal Taxes withheld and for my Texas job I worked it was January to July of 2024 so 7 months I had wages, tips, and other compensation of $14999.28 and I had $858 of Federal Taxes withheld so I really just need to know what will happen cause both my original return I filed January 9th of 2025 ( return without W-2 wrong refund that is $474 and a residency of part year that is coming to me ), and amended return that I filed January 31st 2025 ( right information added W-2 and I have an amount due of $352, but put wrong residency as full year residency I shouldn't be due an amount though) are both processing and I don't know what will be my next step or how it will affect me in order to fix my mistake thank you very much for the help provided.

[DianeW777]

You can amend your Maryland (MD) return again to change the residency and see if there is any difference on the end results.  It's quite unlikely since you had most of your income from MD in 2024, but it's worth checking out. I would give it some time so that your returns can get fully processed.  You do have until April 15th should you have any additional balance due, which may be unlikely.  If there would be a refund as a result of your correction, there is much more time (three years) to complete the second amendment.

@armando50