Nonresident New York State Tax

[BillieJoe]

New York State wants us to file part-year resident returns for folks like us who are nonresident.  That is, we stay there for 3 month and return home. Does the Turbotax software handle this. I believe it is a form IT-203. We don't actually move there. 

[DavidD66]

Yes.  You can file a New York part-year resident or non-resident return using TurboTax.  Have you already filed your federal return?  You cannot prepare a state return by itself, you will have to create it along with a federal tax return.  If you have already filed your federal return, you can recreate it in TurboTax and prepare a New York part-year resident return.  Also, if you don't e-file your federal return you cannot e-file your state return.  You will have to print and mail it.  

[BillieJoe]

Thanks for the reply. I have prepared my Federal and Colorado state returns. I bought the NY State addition and did the work, but the results appear to be disastrous. It seems to be full of mistakes. For example, on form IT-203, the main form, line 32 is supposed to be a copy of line 31, but it is zero. The remaining calculations are based on that number. Also, on one of the worksheets it looks like it should proportion the figures by the percent of time in the state, but it is not. I may be wrong on that. I don't know how to move forward.

[BillieJoe]

Can someone please help me. There seems to be a bug in the New York IT-203 form. See my comment above. I really don't know what to do.  HELP!

[TomD8]

"line 32 is supposed to be a copy of line 31, but it is zero"

Line 32 on the New York IT-203 should show only the Federal amount from Line 31.

Also, in TurboTax you must complete your non-resident NY tax return before you do your resident state CO return, in order for the returns to calculate properly.

[BillieJoe]

But it's not. My line 31 Federal Amount is about 150,000.00 but line 32 is .00 (Zero). It seems like it should just copy 31 federal to line 32. I tried putting the line 31 value on line 32 myself, but it didn't change the results.

I'm getting nervous as the 15th approaches. 

[BillieJoe]

Can you help me with this? There seems to be a bug in the IT-203 form. Please. Who should I contact. April 15 is near.

[MarilynG1]

Since we can't see your return in this forum, I would recommend you Delete your New York return, and re-create it.  

In my test return, my line 32 is also blank, but the results appear correct.  Do you have NY income to report?  If so, are you being taxed only on that income?

In TurboTax Desktop, choose 'Remove State Return' from the FILE menu. 

If this doesn't resolve your issue, you can Contact TurboTax Support, where they can look at your return.

@BillieJoe 

[TomD8]

None of us here can see your tax return, so it's hard to know exactly what's going on.  But for starters, if your main home is in Colorado, and your 3-month stay in New York was strictly temporary, then for tax purposes you are a non-resident of New York and a resident of Colorado.   You are not a part-year resident of either state.  Be sure that you don't indicate on the IT-203 that you were a part-year resident of New York.  A part-year resident is a person who makes a permanent move from one state to another during the tax year.

New York taxes non-residents only on NY-source income.  Income earned from work physically performed in NY is NY-source income.  Did you work in NY during your 3 months there?

Also, in TurboTax, you must complete your non-resident state tax return before your home state tax return.  If you don't do your state returns in the correct order, errors may occur.

[crash12_mn]

@TomD8 

Can you please explain why the statement below is true since I thought state returns do not "talk" to each other. How can order completion cause errors? 

 "in TurboTax, you must complete your non-resident state tax return before your home state tax return.  If you don't do your state returns in the correct order, errors may occur."

[TomD8]

@crash12_mn --

A CO resident who has NY-source income must file both a non-resident NY tax return reporting the income earned in NY, and a resident CO return reporting ALL his income, including the income from NY.

In that situation, CO will grant an "other state credit" for the taxes paid to NY, so as to prevent double taxation.  TurboTax calculates and applies this credit, but the program can only do so if the non-resident state return is completed first, so that the program "knows" the correct amount of the credit.

That's why the sequence is important.

[BillieJoe]

Thanks Marilyn. Interesting. When I forced the correct value in line 32 by overriding the .00, the following lines were also changed using the new value. I am surprised your results were as if the correct number was in line 32 but not visible.

The section of the worksheet where the various incomes are proportioned by the number of days of residency was not valid as well, so I did the calculations myself and entered them.  The results did not carry over to the IT-203 form, so I tried to override those numbers as well. 3 out of the 5 remained on the form, but 2 of them vanished after I put them there. 

I am going to take your suggestion and remove the state and start over. I have relied on Turbo tax for years and hoped it did thing correctly, because I certainly don't understand what it is doing.

[BillieJoe]

Thanks Tom. See my answer to Marilyn above.

Thanks for your insight. I will look more carefully at what I have entered. In fact, I am going to do what Marilyn suggested and start over. I am not working in NY or have any NY sourced income. It's just vacation if you will.

Regarding sequence of doing 2 states. I have already done the federal and Colorado and filed them. The NY is an after-thought. I have found that while working on the NY return the refund value of the Colorado return got larger, so there is some interaction back to the previous state, not just in the forward direction. It might not be correct, but there is interaction.

[TomD8]

@BillieJoe --

If you as a non-resident of NY never physically performed any work within New York, then you have no income tax obligation to the State of New York.

My answer assumes that you had no other NY-source income, for example rental income from a property located in New York.

A non-resident of New York with no NY-source income has no need to file a NY tax return.  A 3-month non-working or vacation stay in New York does not by itself generate any income tax obligation to New York.

[BillieJoe]

I do recall reading that in a reply, but they do seem to interact somewhat. It may not be correct, but they do interact. If they don't interact I can see why you should do the non-resident first as the tax paid in the additional state my be deductible in your state.

See my reply to you above.