<p>Funny! So, HGFM, have you considered that @calmom prepares taxes for a living and presumably has children as successful as yourself, yet she chose to have her kids do their own taxes? Perhaps she felt it was making it easier on her kids to have them fold the tax responsibility in with their school deadlines. With that baseline, perhaps she was offended by your retort, since it invalidated her. Really not my fight, but you may wish to consider the “other” point of view. :)</p>
<p>To answer your question, taxes are due as income is earned, and are withheld in an estimated amount throughout the year. The reason you file taxes is to reconcile the ongoing incremental estimated payments with what you actually owe according to the various federal and state laws. The tax return is the document which provides these reconciliation calculations, and results in leveling up what is owed either to or from the government entity (city, state, and federal) for taxes based on income and expenses. There is usually an amount owed by one party to the other as a result.</p>
<p>ItsJustSchool–what anyone does for a living or how anyone parents has no bearing on the question I asked. The judgment on my parents was out of line. Just another point of view. :)</p>
<p>I came here and asked a question about something I don’t know–which is the point of message boards, unless I’m highly mistaken–not to get judgment on the techniques of my parents, who successfully raised 3 children. </p>
<p>OP is a part-year resident of CO. Residency, unlike marriage, is not determined on the last day of the year. If OP didn’t for 2013 as a part-year resident, CA is likely to come looking for a return, and OP sure sounds domiciliary for part of 2014.</p>
<p>Tax software generally does a poor job with multistate returns; you need to be able to read the output and confirm that you did the input right. Wages + standard deduction and no adjustments to AGI has a decent chance of coming out right, though.</p>
<p>HGFM…ask around. We used a tax preparer for many years. Got the recommendation from a good friend. The price was reasonable. We did go to him with everything very well organized. But he did the actual return for us. This was when my husband was working in another state…so he was filing as a non-resident there…and a resident here. And we filed a joint return…and I only worked in our home state.</p>
<p>It was confusing…but not to the guy who did it!</p>
<p>Is it a bad idea to use turbo tax (free or paid version) for federal and then just hire accountant for the state returns? Perhaps do the turbo tax and consider it “practice,” let the accountant look it over before actually filing? Try the turbo tax state (you can start it before you pay for it I think) It may actually ask you where you lived and where you earned $ etc and prompt you. These programs are pretty amazing and I think some accountants probably use similar stuff for their more basic clients. You do the federal then it will transfer info to the state one to do second (and in your case possibly third and fourth!)</p>
<p>By the way, I have done my kids taxes up until this year as well. I think I will let S1 do his this year, but I will be looking over his shoulder. I hope his W-2 is “Normal”, his paystubs are as clear as mud. He is working and earning commission and there are a million entries and adjustments on his paystub, I could barely tell what was actually earned and paid in taxes. I’ve never seen one so complicated. I was looking at it with him when he was trying to decide what exemptions to claim, or not, on his some of his checks as he gets commission checks that are taxed at “bonus” rates of 40%. Therefore he takes some pay periods exempt to make up for the heavy tax hit on the commission checks.</p>
<p>thumper, that sounds like…no fun at all. Haha. I will talk with my coworkers who have been here a while, because Student Affairs is a pretty high turnover field so it is common to have to file in 2 or 3 states in one year. My boss has been here for almost 10 years so she may have a good recommendation.</p>
<p>njfootballmom, doing things in more than one place would make me more anxious than anything else. Too many opportunities to get it wrong. I think most likely I will go to a CPA for everything. Thankfully our pay stubs are pretty clear; gives net, gross, and a line-item breakdown of all withdrawals and items taken out.</p>
<p>California requires tax filing regardless of any income earned there? Wow. At what age does that start? Seems like extra costs for the state without any taxable income to get money from.</p>
<p>We have used tax preparers for decades since our taxes became more complicated than W2 forms- investment income/losses. We paid the tax preparer for our son’s taxes for the investment taxes on income he earned through our investing in his name. We suggested and he used our tax preparer for his taxes the year he had two states, including the one the preparer is in and knows how taxes work. This year- his investments may be very easy (one or two sources I think) and perhaps he’ll be frugal and take on the task himself- especially having to go through the many page list of questions for the tax preparer. No state income tax where he now lives.</p>
<p>btw- wouldn’t investment income only be taxed in the current state of residency since most capital gains et al occur at the end of the year, one does not prorate them like real estate/home ownership when one sells.</p>
<p>How do taxes work? You earn money and give it to the government :)</p>
<p>IIRC, My s’s had to file in 2 states when they earned $ in 2 states (they moved in the middle of the year) but they got a refund from one state. Dont quote me on that. I’ll double check.</p>
<p>My daughter worked in CA. Because CA withholding was taken out of her pay (her mistake when she filled out the forms), she was required to file as a non-resident. She was a student there. It was not difficult and she got back some of what they withheld from her wages…which were FAR less than $15,000 for the year.</p>
<p>Looked at the first link. So, just living in CA does not mean filing CA taxes. Like in Wisconsin you look at a chart and see if the income is above a certain level. It is where the income is earned, not the place of residence before/during/after the work is done that matters. Otherwise there would be many, many people living in border states close to their jobs to finagle the cheapest income tax burden.</p>
<p>OP- I suspect you have a very easy income to deal with for taxes. Your only income is likely only from those jobs and you will get the proper W2 forms. The hard part may be answering a zillion questions on each form with “0” or “no” as answers. If anyone has given you investments (in your name) you then may have a more complex situation (the reason we paid for our son’s tax prep, and taxes owed come to think of it, before he had his well paying jobs).</p>
<p>I have used Turbotax when I moved from Colo to California. It will ask questions about the dates you moved, if you earned any income in other state, how much, etc. It was actually very smooth and the only down side is you have to pay for 2 filings. If I recall, it’s about $30 per state. TurboTax will generate the correct forms, which should be ‘non-resident or partial year resident.’ Colorado will give you credit for any taxes paid to another state (Indiana).</p>
<p>There was no way I could have figured out the partial year resident for California the year I moved there or the year I moved away, but Turbo tax did it just fine.</p>
<p>You will be a part-year resident of both CO and IN. It is not actually true that CO would give credit for taxes paid to Indiana if she was not a resident of CO when she earned the money. That is a common mistake that people make. Hopefully the program will understand it, but I fix a lot of amended returns for people that mess up the state taxes.
In Indiana and Colorado, everything will be pro-rated for the time that you lived there. Since you will not be in Indiana doing the taxes, make sure if you go somewhere they are familiar with things like the county taxes and the renter’s credit. </p>
<p>Non-resident tax return for IN (in grad school)</p>
<p>Part-year resident tax return for CO</p>
<p>The Indiana income is also reported on the California part-year resident return if earned during the time period she was a CA resident. The Indiana return is probably also attached to the CA return in order to take the CA credit for taxes paid to other states.</p>
<p>Are your parents claiming you as a dependent in 2014? </p>
<p>Don’t forget about the lifetime learning credit (or tuition and fees deduction).</p>
<p>Our D is domiciled in CA. We filed a fed return for her in 2013 to preserve a LTCLoss of $3k for her. Since she earned no income, no CA return was filed. My reading of the citations in posts 29 and 30 does seem like you don’t have to file a CA return if you didn’t meet the minimum CA earned income requirement.</p>