Tax Question: Multiple states?

[hteew]

I am hoping you wonderful people can help me with this one because I am stumped.

DH and I are going to file married/joint for federal.
DH is active duty and his state taxes are paid to NC.
My state taxes are paid to GA.

When I file our state taxes, I am pretty sure I will have to do them seperately. What status do I put on the state tax forms? Married filing seperate? Will that trigger an audit if I do our federal as joint and our state as seperate?

I'm going to hit google later this morning, but I thought you ladies (and gentlemen) may have run into this type of thing before.



Thanks!
Heather

[hteew]

I did my googling and I am pretty sure I have it figured out. Both NC & GA state tax website say that as long as your spouse does not have any income in that state you can file joint. I have no income in NC and he has no income in GA so we can file married/joint for federal and both states.

Wow...can taxes get ANY MORE complicated?

[Mrs_Salty]

I have had to do this for the past 3 years. My DH is a Massachusetts resident but we are stationed and live in California. I am a California resident because I had to change my Drivers License for my job (company car issues, ect). Anyways, I use turbotax for my taxes and what I have always done is "married filing jointly" and when it comes to my CA state taxes turbotax uses only my income and only I file taxes through CA. Then, when it comes to MA taxes, they are filed my husband's income. Somewhere in there he is considered a non-resident of one of the states.

I recommend checking out turbo tax because it will lead you through EVERYtHING and make it very simple. Hope that helps.

[DakotaCowgirl]

My DH is a resident of OH. For their state taxes, we are both resident even though I"m not.

I hate tax season.

[jlbecker]

i dealt with the same thing 2 years ago....i was PA & he was VA. but i forget....yes you have to file them individually, but i forget if you select joint...

oh, but don't forget to check on local. we ran into some issues because PA has local taxes but VA doesn't

[Sunny87740]

Originally Posted by hteew Wow...can taxes get ANY MORE complicated?

Don't ask.

You could have to file in three states: two states for residences for each plus the duty station.

Hubby informs me we have to file in one state this year for $50-some in state taxes.

This is the same state that I have had to call for the last three years and remind them THEY GOT the form showing he was military.

Gaaaaaaah!!!

[hteew]

Ugh! I just LOVE how it varies from state to state.

Sheesh!

Thanks for the advice.