Pennsylvania (PA) will be full year resident for you and you should file separately to make things easier. The tax on PA will be the same either way.
Your spouse will file as a part year resident on each state. All income will be taxed to New York (NY) because it was earned and derived from NY sources. PA will give him a credit for taxes paid to NY on the same income for the 4 or 5 months he lived in PA.
Exceptions to filing married filing jointly on NY when filing jointly on the federal: I would advise filing separately in NY as well and only your spouse.
The only NY exceptions to this rule apply to married individuals who file a joint federal return and:
- one spouse is a New York State resident and the other is a nonresident or part-year resident. In this case you must either:
- file separate New York State returns using filing status ③; or
- file jointly, as if you both were New York State residents, using filing status ②.
File your federal return first as married filing jointly, finish that before doing your state return. Then come back to finish each state.
State Returns - Your resident state requires you to include all worldwide income. Assume both states require income tax returns to be filed:
- Report the income on each state return that is from the nonresident state
- Report it on your resident state and receive credit for taxes paid to another state.
Credit for taxes paid to another state is allowed by a resident state when the same income is being taxed to another state. Your resident state does not want you to pay tax twice on the same income. The credit that is allowed will be the lesser of:
- the tax liability actually charged by the nonresident state, OR
- the tax liability that would have been charged by your resident state
You may have to mail the state returns.
There is an easy way to check your federal as married filing separately to see if it makes a difference, good or bad. The link will show you how to do that.
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