Military - Which state to claim? Need Help!

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
January 7, 2020
1 reply
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Late filing taxes - I'm national guard, was living in Virginia and working a civilian job - went on active duty March 9th, 2018 through the end of the year and offically moved to WA state during that time (never went back to VA) - do I file my taxes as a Virginia resident or WA? I moved to WA and bought a home.

TurboTax

TomD8

Employee

If you moved to WA in 2018 and "abandoned" your previous domicile in Virginia, then for 2019 you are a WA resident. Presumably you informed the military about the change in your state of residence.

WA has no state income tax, so as a full-year WA resident in 2019 you have no state tax return to file.

**Answers are correct to the best of my ability but do not constitute tax or legal advice.

Carl11_2

Employee

If you moved to WA in 2018 and "abandoned" your previous domicile in Virginia, then for 2019 you are a WA resident.

I just want to stress the importance of paying attention to the tax years referenced in the above response. For 2018, you should have, at a minimum, filed a part-year resident return for Virginia. Otherwise, if you filed a full year resident return, then you paid state taxes on all income earned in both states in tax year 2018.

For 2019, you were a WA resident the entire year, provided you met the residency requirements of that state. Those requirements differ with each state, and I don't know them all by heart. But generally, just moving to a state and "claiming" it your resident state is not enough. So while Virginia may no longer be your "tax home" resident state, that does not mean that WA is your resident state. Depending on the residency requirements of WA, you "could" be considered a non-resident still. However, since Washington state does not tax personal income, it's a moot point for tax purposes.