Question

State Residency Determination for Graduate Student: OH, IL, or CA

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
March 7, 2020
1 reply
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We live in Ohio. My son graduated college in May 2018. He took a year off between undergrad and graduate school, taking a part time job as a pitching coach at a Junior College in IL that started in Aug 2018. In May 2019, he left his part time job in IL and moved back home to live with us in OH. Thus, in 2019, he lived for 5 months (Jan-May) in IL. His part time IL job sent him a 2019 W-2 for $3.3k. We were supporting him while he was working part time in IL.

He was then accepted into a graduate school program in California (Cal State University Long Beach - CSULB). He started graduate school full time in Aug 2019. The graduate program is not on-line, i.e. it requires him to be physically present at the university to attend classes. He rents a bedroom in a condo in Long Beach, CA (we are not the condo owners). While in graduate school, he worked for the University for 4 months (Sept - Dec). They sent him a W-2 for $2.6k to the CA address where he rents. We continue to provide his support as well as pay for his schooling from remaining 529 funds. He was 23 yrs old during 2019. He still has his OH driver's license.

The CSULB sent a 1098-T with graduate student box checked and at least 1/2 time student checked.

So, couple questions:

1.) What State does he declare as his residency for the 2019 tax returns?

2.) How may State returns does he have to submit for 2019?

D

DianeC958

Ohio, it sound like his intent was not to become a state resident of the other states since he did not change his driver's license. If he does not need to file a return if he did not have earned income in Ohio.

When a child is away at college, even in another state and you are providing more than half of their support, he is considered a resident of your state.

If he only earned $5,900 during the year he does not have a filing requirement for the Federal since his income is below the Standard Deduction of $12,200. Since you are claiming him as a dependent on your return the only reason for him to file is to receive any Federal Income tax that was withheld. If he files he will receive a Standard Deduction equal to his earned income plus $350 with no Federal Tax due on his return.

For Illinois he would file a Nonresident tax return since his income is greater than the exemption allowance of $2,275.

In order to file Illinois income tax using TurboTax you will need to prepare a Federal Return to populate the state return.

For California he does not have a filing requirement.

Multiple States-Where to File

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