What do you enter for the total wages earned in all states from your W-2 for the "Income allocation to Massachusetts" form, ? Is this only income while living in MA?

[KrisD · Accepted solution]

Income earned anywhere while living in Massachusetts as well as any income earned in Massachusetts as a non-resident. (even if you did not live there at that time)

Massachusetts will tax income earned while living in that state and income earned in that state. 

If you were a part-year resident, do the older state return first, and then the state in which you lived on Dec. 31, 2018. 

[v]

Thank you. So I should only be entering the income from MA. The phrasing is a confusing.

"Here's what we got as the total wages earned in all states from your W-2(s). If the total wages you earned in all states is different, make any adjustments below."

In this case, I should enter all income I received from MA. Not all wages I received in 2018 from other states while I didn't live in MA.

The next window says "Non-Massachusetts Portion of Income. Enter the non-Massachusettes portion of the following income reported on your federal return. This is known as allocated income. Some allocations may be done for you"

In this case, I should enter 0 since I did not earn any income from MA while living in another state.

Am I interpreting this correctly?

[KrisD]

Seems like you are interpreting it better than I am.
Did you do your Federal return first? Usually if you do the Federal first, the income flows and you just allocate the amount to go to that state.
I may need to edit the original answer.
The main objective is that you only pay tax on income while you lived and/or worked in Massachusetts. And it sounds like the program does not know your income (usually it pulls it from the W2's you entered on the Federal return.)
Sounds like I was wrong. First enter what you earned on all your W2's, then enter what is not attributable to MA. The program will subtract this second amount from the first.
That is confusing.

[v]

Thank you for your response. Yes, I filled my Federal return first. The program is taking the income from both W-2 automatically even though only 1 is income from MA.

[KrisD]

Thank you for the update. Yes enter it the way you figured, total wage income, then income allocated to MA.