Question

I'm a graduate student who worked and lived in Ohio all year, but my permanent address is Pennsylvania. Do I file an Ohio or Pennsylvania return?

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
April 2, 2022
2 replies
0 views

For the 2020 return, I owed Pennsylvania since I worked in Ohio for a few months. This year, I worked in Ohio and didn't earn any income in Pennsylvania. When I tried completing the PA return, I wasn't able to enter in the income information from the W-2 in any section, so it said I had an income of $0 and didn't owe anything. I thought this was odd since I owed last year. Do I need to file an Ohio return instead?

E

ErnieS0

It depends. A student generally keeps their state of residency while attending school, usually because they remain a dependent of their parents.

If your permanent home is Pennsylvania, then you would remain a PA resident.

If you moved to Ohio, pay your own living expenses, and don’t any connection to PA than an address you use, then you are probably an OH resident. Every case is different.

What state tax (Box 15 state code) was withheld?

OH and PA have reciprocity. An employer is supposed to withheld PA tax for a nonresident working in OH.

If your PA return is showing $0 income, you probably listed OH as your state of residence in My Info and had OH tax withheld from your pay.

Change your resident to PA in My Info if you are a PA resident and file a nonresident OH and resident PA return. You can claim a credit on PA for OH tax.

Otherwise, file a resident OH return and don’t file PA.

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G

Gabi4Author

I do have my address set to my permanent address in Pennsylvania. I don't have my temporary address in Ohio listed anywhere in TurboTax.

The state listed in box 15 is Ohio, but there wasn't any state tax withheld. Boxes 16 and 17 are both blank. For the 2020 filing year, state taxes were withheld. I'm not sure if this could've caused any issues.

Hal_Al

Employee

I'm not familiar with the PA software, but the wrong box 15 state would interfere in the the OH software. You might try changing box 15 to PA and put the box 1 amount in box 16 at the W-2 screen in TT.

Hal_Al

Employee

Q. Do I need to file an Ohio return instead?

A. If you are still a PA resident as described by @ErnieS0 , then no. Because of the reciprocity agreement, it is not necessary to file an OH return. Even if you need to file a non-resident OH return, to get a refund of state withholding* (box 17 of the W-2, if OH is in box 15), you still need to file a PA resident return and report all your income, including the OH income.

*The reciprocity agreement does not apply to OH city tax (box 19 of the W-2). You cannot get that refunded. You can usually use the city taxes paid in OH to offset the local municipal taxes that will be due on your local PA return, if you are subject to one.