Live in IL but work for NY Company. Unsure about "Allocate your Illinois and non-Illinois amount", Was taxed in both IL and NY for the same income. What should non-IL be

[nperri6]

I lived in IL  and NJ for part of the year, but worked for a NY company the whole time.  The entire income was taxed in NY, and the portion while living in IL was also taxed by IL. On the "Allocate your Illinois and non-Illinois amount"  It has the wages filled in for IL but nothing in 'Non IL income'.  Should I be filling some amount in there?  I am trying to determine if I qualify for a "tax paid in other state" credit

[DanielV01 · Accepted solution]

It depends.  The question is asking how much of the income that is being reported to Illinois was actually earned in another state, in this case NY, so that the credit for taxes to another state may be calculated correctly.  For this question, if the amount reported to NY is taxable to NY, this is the information you will put in this box. 

However, there are other factors.  NY has some tricky laws when it comes to income that is taxable to NY.  Although you did not live there, you are considered as working in NY if you worked remotely from home.  In this circumstance, (which seems to be the case here) you file a NY nonresident return on all of your income, and both Illinois and NJ will give you credit for the NY income that you earned while in each state, since each taxes the amount of income you earned in NY during the same time period.

If, however, NY was not supposed to tax this income, you still file the NY nonresident return, but you will allocate the income in New York.  Your Illinois income would not be taxable in NY if you were working in an Illinois office instead of from home, and you would want to indicate that this income is not taxable.

Either way, you do wish to prepare the nonresident return first to get accurate calculations.  Here's an FAQ to assist you with this:  https://ttlc.intuit.com/replies/3302052

[edited 3/5 2017 6:03 PST]

[nperri6]

Thanks, that makes sense. What I am wondering about is that, when I don't allocate for IL I am not receiving any tax credit for the taxes that I paid in NY. When I do my NJ taxes I do.  I am wondering why the IL taxes don't offset.

[DanielV01]

You are correct.  In the Allocation screen, enter the New York income that matches your Illinois income.  This is the amount that that box is asking for.  This is the amount that you earned while an Illinois resident as a nonresident of New York, which New York is taxing.  This is how TurboTax will calculate your credit.  I am editing my answer to accurately convey this information.

[nperri6]

Thanks for help Daniel.  I just had one more clarification about that section.  If I have 30,000 total income in IL, and 29,000 of that was earned from the NY source, on that "Allocate your Illinois and non-Illinois amount", do I leave the IL amount as 30,000 and set the "non-IL" as 29,000?  When I do this, it does say I will get a tax credit, but when I go to file it says I cannot e-file because "cannot file when the sum of Illinois wages plus out of state wages on all W-2s does not equal total wages reported on IL Schedule CR".   Would I change IL wages to 1000, and the non IL to 29,000?   Or leave the IL as 30,000, and the non IL blank?  In either of those situations it doesn't give me a tax credit for IL.   Thanks again.

[DanielV01]

Leave the IL as 30,000, and the non-Illinois as 29,000.  Then, check the W-2 to see if the NY amount plus the IL amount equals box 1.  (If there is a NJ amount also from the same company, this could be causing the issue.  If this is the case, you may have to mail in the IL return because of a quirk in how these states are required to report on a W-2).  Here's an FAQ that describes the message you're seeing (You'll need to click on the link):  <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://ttlc.intuit.com/replies/5084858">https://ttlc.intuit.com/replies/5084858</a>

[nperri6]

Hi Daniel, Yes, the NJ is also from the same company.  My W2 has 3 states listed on it, IL, NJ, and NY.  The IL and the NJ appear to be a subset of the total earned, and the NY amount is the total. IL: 29,409.46, NJ: 33,777.21, NY 62,600.91 (which is the total in box 1) .  What is kind of strange is adding IL + NJ = 63,186.67, which is more than the total I made in the year.  I am assuming this means there is an overlapping payment period where they took tax for both states.   I am thinking that this number discrepancy might be what is causing that error message for e-filing to occur.  Thank you for all your help!

[DanielV01]

Like I said, it is a quirk between how NJ and NY reports their income, which does affect this. Part of the reason for the difference is that NJ considers 401K as taxable state income, whereas the federal does not.  No way to adjust this for Illinois; you'll need to mail it in.

For your NJ return there is another area to check.  Since you gave me exact amounts I can tell you what to put in the box.  NJ has a question on double-taxed income, which refers to your NY income you earned while living in NJ.  You will enter 33,191 (actually 33191.45, but you round down), which is the amount of NY income being taxed by NJ as well.  For the tax paid on the double-taxed income, you will either add additional NY tax due to the NY tax withheld on your W2 or subtract refund to be received, and then multiply by .5302, which is the ratio between the NJ portion and the IL portion.  This way, NJ tax is calculated correctly so you are not double-taxed by NJ either.

[nperri6]

Great, thanks again for the help!

[DanielV01]

Always a pleasure.