If HSA employer contributions were only made from current employer, in NM, why is this also added to previous income, in CA?

[janie-star21]

I am filing using 2 W2's, one from my former employer in CA, and the second from my current employer in NM. The NM employer contributed to my HSA, but CA did not. Why does this affect CA income in any way?

[BillM223 · Accepted solution]

California does not recognize the HSA deduction; therefore, HSA contributions that were removed from federal income have to be added back to state income. And, of course, TurboTax doesn't know when you made those contributions.

Here is an answer on how to handle this from a prior year, but I suspect it will still help you. Let me know if it doesn't.

Part-year residents of California - Taxed on all income received while a resident and only on income from California sources while a nonresident. (see

https://www.ftb.ca.gov/individuals/fileRtn/Nonresidents-Part-Year-Residents.shtml#how_taxed).

Part-year California residents often find that TurboTax adds back all the HSA contributions, even ones made in another state.

There is no good way for TurboTax to know in which state the contributions were made in, so the taxpayer needs to manually adjust the California state income to remove the HSA contributions that were added back while the taxpayer was not in California.

For example, if the taxpayer lived 6 months in California and 6 months in Texas, and made $3,000 in HSA contributions evenly distributed over the year, then the taxpayer should adjust the California state income by $1,500 to remove one half of the total HSA addback that was done to California state income by TurboTax.

Another example is that a taxpayer who lives in California but moved to Texas on July 1st, but all the HSA contributions were made while in Texas. TurboTax by default adds the entire HSA contribution back to California state income. Because none of the HSA contributions were actually made while the taxpayer was a California resident, the whole HSA contribution for the year needs to be backed out of California income.

***To make the CA adjustment***

Go to State Returns, and navigate to your California return.

In Income and adjustments, proceed through the interview. You may see a screen announcing that HSA contributions are treated differently in California. Just hit Continue.

You will notice on the main page ("Here's the income that California handles differently"), the first line item is (likely to be) "Health Savings Account (HSA) Contributions". Here TurboTax notes that the amount of your HSA contribution has been added back to the California return.

NOTE, despite the Edit button, you can't change this here.

Scroll down to Miscellaneous Adjustments on this screen. Click Start for Other Adjustments to Income.

Enter in the left column "adjustment for out-of-state HSA contributions". Enter in the middle column (i.e., a subtraction) the dollar amount of HSA contributions made out-of-state. This will be subtracted from your California state income.

Make a note on your copy of your state tax return (because, of course, you are going to save a copy, right?) that you made this adjustment because TurboTax added back all the HSA contributions (even ones made while a non-resident), and you needed to counteract this. This is in case you ever get a letter from the state asking about this adjustment.