Remote job and taxes

[toledoj07]

After completing the taxes on TurboTax with guidance with a tax specialist from TurboTax, I find that my questioning why New York is charging me over $1200 of taxes for the year. I learned from my supervisor at Maximus that he was informed the New York tax form should have never been filed because our company is a subcontractor based in the state of Virgina. Please advise me now since February of year 2020 if I have been working remotely as a new jersey resident.  Can I request a refund?  

[KrisD15]

Please clarify your question, 

are you saying that you work remotely for a company based in Virginia? 

Which state are you / were you a resident of? 

Why did you file a New York state return? 

Which state taxes did the employer withhold from your paychecks? 

[toledoj07]

I live and work remotely in New Jersey for a company addressed in Virginia that is has New York jobs.  The W-2 forms are from New York and New Jersey / The New Jersey state tax was withheld but not New York and now there is a debit balance from New York  for over $1200 .

[ErnieS0]

Your employer may have made a mistake. If you lived and worked in New Jersey, I don’t understand why you have a New York line on your W-2. 

Are there NY wages in Box 16? If there are, then your employer should have withheld NY tax and not NJ tax because NJ will give you credit for tax paid to NY, assuming you had NY income.

However, as a fully remote NJ employee, your company should not report any NY wages or withhold any state tax unless you were employed “within and without” NY state, meaning you were physically present in NY for at least one work day.

Read the discussion by @kristinelbly in "I work for a NY company, remotely from NC. I spent 1 day in 2017 on site, but my W-2 has full salary..."

[toledoj07]

Most of the NY boxes were empty and gave all the information to TurboTax representative when she checked the tax forms. 

[DawnC]

Did you work in NY at all in 2022?   Were there any NY taxes taken out on either W-2 in Box 17 (you said ''most'')?    If you did not work in NY or have any NY taken out (the employer's address does not matter), you should not have filed a NY tax return at all.   However, if you never worked in NY but the company withheld NY state taxes in error, you can get those back by filing a NY nonresident return.    What kind of return did you prepare for NY?   You may need to file an amendment depending on your answers to the questions above.  Did you use TurboTax Online to file your taxes?  If not how did you file your return?

[toledoj07]

Yes a non- resident form was already filled out by the assistant turbo tax accountant who was assistant/ please advise

[ThomasM125]

The problem you will have is that New York wages were entered on your W-2, as evidenced by the abbreviation "NY" in box 15 and wages listed in box 16? Consequently, New York is going to assume you earned income there and it will be difficult to convince them otherwise. Your best option is to get a corrected W-2 issued showing no New York wages.

New York can tax you on work you do remotely for a New York based company, but only if you are working remotely out of convenience, not out of necessity. In other words, if the company in New York that you work for has a facility there that you could preform your services at, then they can under the tax laws of New York tax you on your earnings from that company.