For the past 5 years my wife and I lived in NYC in a small condo in Queens which we own. We had a child in early 2023 and in November 2023 my wife and I bought a new home as a Primary Residence in upstate New York and moved there, about 90 minutes north of NYC. I work remotely and my wife commutes to the office 3 days per week. We maintained our 1 bedroom NYC condo so that my wife could drop off the baby in daycare Monday-Wednesday (with the help of her mom which lives nearby to our Queens condo), and stay in the condo for part of the week. In the January - June of 2024 my Wife would spend Monday - Thursday in NYC with the child in daycare or with grandma. I worked remotely the entire time from our new primary residence in upstate New York. From June - December 2024 we got a nanny and the baby stayed in the upstate house with me while my wife commuted to the office, also occasionally staying in the condo whenever she had to work late.
Now we are both full NY STATE residents for both tax years. However in 2023 we were both "partial NYC residents" due to the move in November 2023. Now in 2024 we are both still full NY STATE residents, but I am unsure how to file our NYC CITY residency. I understand the 183 day rule. I believe my wife spent approximately ~200 days in NYC during the year, maybe slightly less. I was in NYC only maybe about ~20 days total.
1) For 2024 should we file my wife as a NYC resident, and me as a non-resident? Will that raise any red flags? Would it be safer to just mark both of us as non-NYC residents?
2) If we do file my wife as a full NYC resident to be safe in case we exceeded 183 day rule, does that mean that we cant E-file the state return? Do we also need to file separate State taxes? Or we can file the same state tax but with her being a NYC resident but me a Non-NYC resident? (I read on another thread "If you do not have the same NY residency status, you would need to file separate returns"), is that correct?
3) If we cant E-file and need to print our state returns, are there any watch-outs to know before hand of what you need to do when printing and sending a state tax return?
Thank you in advance. Let me know if there is anything I can clarify up if my info above wasn't clear.
Bumping for visibility to see if anyone has any suggestions/advise.
Thank you.
1. For 2024, you should file as non-NYC and your wife as NYC resident. It should not raise any red flags; even if it did, your explanation of your situation supports the filing. It is never "safer" to report knowingly wrong in an attempt to avoid the audit.
2. You will be able to e-file the joint New York return, even with the NYC residency being different.
Thank you for the reply MaryK. I did chose to go the route of filing myself as non-NYC resident, and filing my wife as NYC resident. While we are able to file the NY state tax return jointly, however TurboTax did not allow me to E-file the NY State tax return. I got a message saying that due to the difference in residency status, we needed to mail the state return in. Is this something you can look into?
Wanted to follow up as I'm in a similar situation. Turbotax and other software won't efile for us if we have different statuses..any resolution here?