Moved from Ohio to Kentucky

[penglish92]

I worked the entire 2021 year in Ohio. I moved though in March from Ohio to Kentucky. When looking at my W-2, I notice that it breaks up my State tax between KY and OH which makes sense. What confuses me is that in box 16 for KY it has my total income for the entire year while box 16 for OH shows no income. Do I need to manually calculate how much income I made in OH and KY?

[RaifH · Accepted solution]

Yes, you will want to manually calculate your income for each state. Although it does not sound like the case here, make sure there is no OH withholding information on a different W-2. Sometimes when multiple states are involved, they may report the entire wages in Box 1 and each state's wages in Boxes 15-20, but on different W-2s. Check for a second page or additional information if you received your W-2 electronically. 

Any reasonable allocation method is fine. You can either go through your pay stubs to determine exactly how much you made before you moved, or you can just ballpark it. If you lived in Ohio 2 months of the year, give them 1/6 of the income if your income was roughly the same throughout the year. 

You will need to file part-year returns for both states. Going forward, since Kentucky and Ohio have a reciprocal agreement, your employer should properly withhold Kentucky taxes and you will not have to file an Ohio return.