My husband and I have our house (mortgage under his name for now) in North Carolina, where he works. I work as a college professor in Pennsylvania, where I rent an apartment. I live there for between 1/2 and 2/3 of the year (I come back home to NC every other weekend, all summer from May - August, and on every other break). We are MFJ, but I am not sure what my state of residency needs to be for tax purposes. I presume we will need to file separate state returns? I consider NC my home, but all my income comes from PA and I have a PA driver's license. Thanks for any help!
You will need to file a PA nonresident tax return reporting only the income earned in PA. Since PA is a flat rate state, you may very well have a zero refund, zero balance due.
They you and your husband file a joint resident NC return reporting all income, including that earned in PA. Make sure, when going through the interview, that you say you paid taxes to another state and get a credit on your NC return for taxes paid to PA.
Regarding PA local taxes, they are not refundable.
See this link for NC rules for claiming this resident credit: http://www.dor.state.nc.us/taxes/individual/another.html
You can file your taxes in the state that your spouse lives in. True, you have two residences for yourself, but your true home would be his. When you sit down and do your taxes, you are going to have to answer yes to the question of working in another state and will have to figure out the taxes. Not that big of a deal.
Thanks for your response. I'm a bit confused by this re: state taxes. I get paid in PA, and I've had state and local taxes taken out of my paycheck in PA. So I presume I will have to file a PA state return and my husband will have to file an NC one. Can I list myself as a resident of NC but still pay PA state taxes? If so, how do we make sure we're not paying state taxes on our joint income in both states?