Maintained permanent residence in PA, but lived and worked in OH from May 2018-November 2019

[aknighterrant18]

I was an intern in Ohio from May 2018-October 2018, and then joined AmeriCorps and served in Ohio from November 2018-November 2019. I lived in PA my whole life until moving to Ohio. I don't think I was ever a "permanent resident" of Ohio, and I moved back to PA in November after my AmeriCorps service ended. How should I answer the questions about what state I lived in in 2019 and when I became a PA resident?

[Hal_Al · Accepted solution]

Since you maintained a PA residence, indicate (in the personal info section) that you lived in PA all year.  Your time in OH was only temporary, the same as if you attended school there.

In the personal info section, when it asks if you made money in another state, answer NO, per the reciprocal state instructions, on that page. This will prevent TurboTax from thinking you need to file an OH return.

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Ohio has a reciprocal agreement, on wages, with all neighboring states. No Ohio state taxes are withheld or due and you do not need to file an OH return. But your home state will tax you on your Ohio income.

If Ohio taxes are mistakenly withheld, you have to file an Ohio return to get a refund. 

However the reciprocity agreement does not apply to local city taxes. You are not required to file a local city return, but you are also not entitled to a refund of the city withholding (box19 on your W-2), unless there was an error in the amount. You can use the city taxes paid in OH to offset the local municipal taxes that will be due on your local PA return, if you are subject to one.

[aknighterrant18]

Thanks for your answer, that really helped!

I made it to the State Review section and got a "Check This Entry" notification. The page says, "Schedule G/L (Untitled): Portion of tax by owner: Owner portion of tax paid to this state -- is missing. Enter taxpayer's amount or a zero." I think that the layout is throwing me off - there's a lot of information that I don't think I need to deal with, but it's confusing me. What should I do here?

[Hal_Al]

You should not be doing a Schedule G/L.  That's for a credit for tax paid to another state. PA will not give you a credit for tax paid to a reciprocal state (OH). If OH state tax was withheld, you have to file an OH return to get a refund.