Spouse doing year long Internship in North Carolina: Non resident vs Part Time Resident for NC if Permanent Residence is in Connecticut

[sss1985]

Hello,

My spouse and I own our home and live in CT. She is a college student and is doing a year long internship in North Carolina from August 2025 to August 2026.  She will come back to CT once the internship is complete. 2 questions:

1. For purposes of NC tax filing, will she considered as Non resident or Part year Resident?

2. When I use Self Service Turbo Tax, because we are filing  MFJ for federal, it is asking us to us file MFJ for NC State Tax also even though only one of us had income in NC.

Please let know your inputs or if I need to use the File with an Expert product. Thanks. 

[MaryK4]

1. Because she intends to move back to Connecticut and not make North Carolina her home (at least for now) she would file as a nonresident for North Carolina.

2. North Carolina allows you to file a separate state return if you are a nonresident with no North Carolina income.  However, to do so, you have to create a MFS federal return (NOT FILED) using her information and income only to file the North Carolina separate return (and you must mail the faux return with your North Carolina return, see How do I prepare a joint federal return and separate state ).  

Because you are both nonresident, if you filed North Carolina as a joint return, your income would not be taxed, but North Carolina uses the total income to determine the tax rate applied to the income so your may pay more tax using this method.   

The process itself is simple if you go step by step.  

[sss1985]

Thanks for the clarification. I will switch to Turbo Tax Desktop as suggested.  One more follow up question:

Can we both file MFJ for CT and only spouse file Married Filing Separately for NC?

Thanks. 

[AmyC]

Yes. CT - MFJ or JFS - allows you to file separately or jointly to determine the lowest tax for you. See CT Income Tax Dashboard - Filing Status | Connecticut Data

NC - MFS    See Your Filing Status - Individual Income Tax follows federal unless you have an exception, which you do. Only one spouse had income there.