Question

If one of my W-2 forms has my full income duplicated in box 16 for my state of residence and for my state of employment, can I zero out box 16 for my state of residence?

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
March 17, 2023
2 replies
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My state of residence is Massachusetts and my state of employment is Rhode Island. Duplicated income on the W-2 form causes the Massachusetts tax form to double my income.

TurboTax Deluxe Online

LindaS5247

You will need to enter two state tax returns. A Nonresident State Tax Return for RI and a Resident State Tax Return for MA.

It is recommended to prepare the nonresident state first, because your resident state will provide you a credit for the tax you pay to the nonresident state.

The proper way to fill out the W-2 for multiple states is:

In Box 16 most states report the amount of wage that was earned in that state. So if you had state withholding in more than one state, you would see the first state listed in box 15 followed by the wage earned in that state in Box 16. Beneath that you would see the next state listed in Box 15 followed by the wage earned in that state in Box 16. When the two wage amounts listed in each of the Box 16 are added together they would total box 1 which is your Federal Wage amount.

Since your W-2 may be incorrectly completed you can do that but you could also request a corrected Form W-2 from your Employer. That way your Form W-2 will be properly reported to the IRS. Keep all Forms W-2 for your records in case questions arise later on.

Click here for additional information on filing multiple state returns.

Click here for information regarding filing multiple states returns.

Click here for how to delete your state return in TurboTax desktop.

Click here for how to delete your state tax return in TurboTax Online.

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2

22185_03589Author

I have requested a corrected W-2 form from my employer, but they ignore everything I present to them and just keep saying the W-2 form is correct. They will not change the W-2. My full income is listed in box 16 for both MA and RI. For box 17, both MA and RI have state income tax listed, RI tax is much larger than MA tax. If I manually zero out the MA box 16 income, will Turbo Tax allow this and properly handle the MA tax form? Will this "raise a red flag" for an audit?