Am I Still Required to File A Past State Tax Return?

states with no income tax

Don’t worry about filing a past state tax return if you belong to one of these as your resident state.

The U.S. states that do not have income taxes are Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming. However, just because you don’t need to pay income tax, doesn’t mean a state is any cheaper to live in. In order to maintain state revenue, states with no income tax rely on other uses of taxes such as estate, property, sales, excise, gift taxes and more.

For example, here are a few ways each state maintains their state revenue:

  • Alaska depends on estate, excise, gift and severance taxes
  • Florida depends on property, sales, and corporate income taxes
  • Nevada; being a tourist attraction, depends on fees, gambling taxes, and high sales taxes
  • South Dakota taxes property, alcoholic beverages and cigarettes
  • Texas depends on high use, sales and property taxes
  • Washington depends on business, occupation and sales taxes
  • Wyoming depends on taxing property and businesses

Unlike the seven states above, New Hampshire and Tennessee do not have personal income taxes but still taxes specific types of income. New Hampshire doesn’t have sales tax, or inheritance tax but it does tax interest and dividends. Tennessee does not have estate and inheritance tax but taxes dividends and interest due to its Hall Tax.

Have you forgotten to file a state return or two?

Continue reading “Am I Still Required to File A Past State Tax Return?”

How To File Taxes in Two Different States

Do you carry the burden of dealing with multiple states on your tax return?

For most of us, filing a state tax return is just another step in filing a federal return. Your tax-filing software just transfers your information to your state’s return and you’re done within minutes.

But what if you moved to a different state during the tax year? What if you worked in a state other than the one where you lived? What if you worked in multiple states? Suddenly filing state taxes becomes a little trickier and it may involve filing taxes in two different states.

Basically there are three different types of state tax returns that you need to worry about:

  • Resident
  • Part-Year Resident
  • Nonresident

Continue reading “How To File Taxes in Two Different States”

State Income Tax: Living in One State, Working in Another

Need to file state taxes when you live and work in different states?

Most people in the U.S. live and work in the same state, which makes state taxes pretty easy to understand – you pay taxes to the state where you live and work.

But what if you live in one state and work in another? Do you pay taxes to the state where you live? Where you earn an income? Both?!

You need to pay taxes to both. Most likely you will end up having to file a resident return in the state where you live and a nonresident return in the state where you work.

Resident return

Generally you need to file a resident return in the state where you are a permanent resident. This state has the right to tax ALL of your income, wherever it was earned. Continue reading “State Income Tax: Living in One State, Working in Another”