Due to military service, I spent half of 2015 and half of 2016 in Korea without my family, who stayed in Colorado. After Korea, I was sent to California, but my family stayed in Colorado. We have dual households, but will be MFJ.
If you did not change your state of legal residence (domicile) and you were a Colorado resident when you left for Korea, you are still a resident of Colorado. Your active duty military pay will be taxed in Colorado even though you earned it in California.
If you had any other income in California (like a part time job, gambling winnings etc) you may be required to file a nonresident CA return.
Thanks very much! Is all this still true if: a) We are residents of TX, and b) we now have two households... one in CA and one in CO, but are still officially TX residents.
It depends... Is your wife in the military as well? Let me know while I look some this up.
You are able to keep your Texas domicile (state of legal residence/SLR) because of your active duty status.
Yes, we've kept our TX residence for the last 20+ years, thank goodness! My wife is NOT in the military.
This may be tricky- Were you stationed in Colorado before you went to Korea? Read this- <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/sites/default/files/Income21.pdf">https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/sites/default/files/Income21.pdf</a> If your wife earned income in Colorado while she was living there with you, her income gets taxed by Texas (which of course has no tax)
However, she may have to file the income as a nonresident in Colorado after you left. Well, 1) Were you stationed in Colorado before Korea and 2) Did she work in Colorado in 2016? Please let me know
Yes, I was in CO before my remote assignment to Korea. She has and will file non-resident income tax. I want to make sure I file correctly in TurboTax, and would like to know if there are special credits/allowances for dual households.
It sounds like everything is correct. The rules are so technical for military I always wan to double check. Unfortunately, there aren't any special allowances for the dual households that I can think of but if I find any, I will add them to this thread.