I was a student in PA from Jan to May 2016. From June-Dec 31, 2016 I lived and worked in NYC, but my name was never on any lease or I subleted while living in NY. Now (2017), I am back in PA. What is my permanent address when filing NY States taxes and also PA state taxes?
Your PA address is your "permanent" address. However, your NY address also factors in on the return. You will list the PA address in the Personal Info tab, but state that your state of residence on Dec. 31 was New York. It asks you if you lived in another state besides New York. You answer yes: PA. Federal Return will be pretty normal. Then you get to the states. You are filing part-year returns for each. Shouldn't have any issues with the PA return. When you get to the New York return, you will see a question if your current address was your address on December 31. You will answer no and input the New York address here. (New York requires this information).
Based on your information, next year you will also file part-year returns for New York and PA (if you live the remainder of this year in PA). However, you will do them in reverse order: you will state that PA is your Dec. 31 residence state, and NY was the other state you lived in.
Was all of your work from NY? Were you there as an intern, or was this a move that the job didn't work out? These details can assist me provide you with a thorough answer.
So here's the full timeline:
I was a student from Jan - April 2016 and also worked part time at a call center (both in PA)
After graduation I moved to NYC and started working full time (at a financial firm not the call center place in PA) starting in June 2016 and worked there until March of this year. However when living in NYC I lived and paid rent in an apartment but was never on the lease. I paid money to a guy whose brother's name was on the lease. But I still got my mail sent to that NYC address while I was there.
Now I am back in PA and my old PA address is once again my address.
As a result I have two w2s for 2016. One from my part time job in PA while I was a student and another one with much more income and line items from my work at my full-time job in NYC .
Your PA address is your "permanent" address. However, your NY address also factors in on the return. You will list the PA address in the Personal Info tab, but state that your state of residence on Dec. 31 was New York. It asks you if you lived in another state besides New York. You answer yes: PA. Federal Return will be pretty normal. Then you get to the states. You are filing part-year returns for each. Shouldn't have any issues with the PA return. When you get to the New York return, you will see a question if your current address was your address on December 31. You will answer no and input the New York address here. (New York requires this information).
Based on your information, next year you will also file part-year returns for New York and PA (if you live the remainder of this year in PA). However, you will do them in reverse order: you will state that PA is your Dec. 31 residence state, and NY was the other state you lived in.
Thanks that was really helpful. I've got another question if you're up for it...
OK so I'm done the Federal and NY and almost done the PA one. All this relates to the PA tax return:
I am at the compensation summary section. It says when verifying income from the various jobs, "keep in mind that deferred contributions (e.g. 401 contributions) must be included in PA income"...So does that mean the $1980.00 in 401k contributions listed on my W2 from my NY job needs to be included as taxable PA income?
Another question that would require some more info for you to properly answer:
Also doesn't that mean I am being double taxed for that and can get a credit of some sort for that at a later point in the process? I believe I stumbled upon that double tax section but couldn't figure out how to fill out that table.
Both good questions. Your NY income is not taxed in PA, including the 401K contribution. However, PA will use the amount to determine their tax. They will determine how much tax you pay on all of your income (which, for this purpose, includes the 401K), and then assess the percentage of tax on how much was earned in PA. So if 80% of your income was earned in New York (401K is New York "Income"), PA figures out the tax on all of your income, and taxes 20%, based on how much you earned in PA.
If you were working in NY and living in PA, then your income would be double-taxed: taxed in both states. However, in your case, NY taxes NY income (although they determine the tax based off of all of your income also), and PA taxes PA income only.
Ok thanks, that's really helpful. I really appreciate it. Thing is, like 97% of my income from the year came from the NY. Either way, really appreciate the help. I should be all set for now and I'll ignore the double tax credit part. Just want to be done at this point!