| Topic Name: |
Out-of-Town Taxes |
| Message Name: |
Consider going to a tax preparer |
| Date Posted: |
02/21/2006 |
| In Reply To: |
Hello,
I left ACN last year after working 8 months in New York where ACN paid/withheld state tax. As I now fill out my non-resident tax form it seems I have to pay more New York tax due to married-filing jointly status, spouse income and capital gains that New York wants to know about.
They include this income to determine a state tax amount, and then multiply it by the percentage of only my salary earned in NY. Which results in more tax then was paid by ACN.
Can anyone provide advice on this? Accenture HR services is telling me I have to file and pay the tax. Then request an adequacy review (which is $250), and then hope they decide that ACN should pay the additional amount.
Thanks
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| Message: |
I've had to file in numerous states a number of times (3 states three times, 2 states twice) and it can be a pain figuring things out as each state does it's taxes a bit different, and each state has different methods of calculating how much tax non-residents owe. I've seen at least two, 1) you owe income tax on the income as if that were your whole income 2) you owe income tax as a percentage of what you'd pay on your whole income, with the percentage being the state income divided by the total income. #2 ends up being more since you'll probably end up in a higher tax bracket.
The two things that particularly pique my interest is the spouse income and the capital gains. The capital gains may not count as NY income for you, but it'd probably be easier for an actual tax preparer to answer that. As well, it may be easier for a tax preparer to work up the numbers for a number of different ways of filling to see which is better. If married-filling jointly means your spouses income counts towards your NY income (which doesn't make alot of sense to me, but a tax preparer should be able to answer that as well), then you may do better filling jointly, though I really don't know.
I can't say for certain as I've never filled married-filling jointly, but it seems odd that spousal income would count. It also seems somewhat odd that the capital gains needs to count in NY income (I've certainly never counted it).
One other thing to look for which you probably caught but can be missed (and would be very painful if you did miss) is that the tax paid to NY is deducted from the tax paid to the state you live in. So if you pay NY $100 and your state says you owe a total of $200 (we could all wish!) you'd only owe your state $100 and would attach the other state's tax return as proof of payment of the $100 to NY.
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