son is in college full time in another state. He has work study and received 2 W-2's from the college. First one is from that state and does not list any wages in box 1, and lists their state in box 15 with his wages & taxes in #16 & 17. The second one they sent has wages in box 1 and lists our home state in box 15 with the wages & taxes. I don't understand why and I don't know which to use to file his taxes. Thanks for any help
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File a resident and nonresident state income tax return for your son. College students are considered to be "temporarily absent" from their home state while attending school so they remain a resident of their home state. Money earned anywhere is taxable to a home state.
Since your son received a W-2 he will also have to file with his college state because he earned money there.
If the federal information is the same on both W-2s, enter the federal information once and include two state rows (Boxes 15-20), one for the home state and the other for the work state. TurboTax will carry these amounts to the right places on the state returns.
You can claim a tax credit on the home state return for taxes paid to the work state.
It's unusual for an employer to list more than one state. It's possible the states are taxing the same income differently or the school's payroll made a mistake and withheld the wrong state before things were corrected.
In that case you may want to review the wage amounts since the total amount your son earned would be taxable to both states. You may have to make an adjustment on the state returns.
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