Question

Remote worker, two W2's for same company

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
January 22, 2025
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I live in MA, and my company is in New York --I work remotely. I got two W2's, that have all the same info except for income tax. I know that I need do one W2 and then click to add a state, but box 16 is the same on both W2s. So if I fill out box 16 twice as shown on my W2's it looks like I made twice as much money as I reported in box 1. So do I fill it out on one and leave it blank on the other? If so, which one do I fill it out on? Or do I fill it out on both and have it look like double?

Multiple States

D

DavidD66

You should enter the amounts in each Box 16 as they appear on your W-2s. As a Massachusetts (MA) resident, all of your income is taxed by MA regardless of where you earned it. New York (NY) considers someone working remotely (telecommuting) for a NY company as working in NY, and therefore taxes them as a NY nonresident. The amounts in Box 16 for each state only indicates the amount of the income in Box 1 that is taxable by that state. It will not double your taxable income, rather it means that 100% of the amount in Box 1 is taxable by each state. As a Massachusetts resident, Ma will give you a credit on your MA tax return for the income tax you pay to another state, in your case the tax you pay on your New York non-resident tax return. The amount of the credit may be less than the actual amount of tax you pay to New York.

There are situations where remote income is not considered taxable by New York. To determine if your remote income will be taxed by the State of New York see the following TurboTax article: Is my remote income taxable in New York State? [Edited 01/26/25|1:40 pm PST]

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A

ABOSAuthor

Okay thank you. So, to oversimplify, let's pretend that my federal box 1 is $100. My MA box 16 says $100, and my NY box 16 also says $100. I should fill in $100 in box 16 for both states, yes?

B

BillM223

Thank you! Last question...does it matter which state return I do first in the TT software to make sure the credit goes correctly?

Do your nonresident state first (NY) and your state of residence last (MA). Yes, it matters because this will do what Vanessa said: tax the income in NY and then bring that tax back to MA as a credit.

Just to be clear, you enter only one W-2, but enter multiple entries for boxes 15-17.

Yes, in a sense, you are being taxed twice on this income, but providing a credit is how states deal with double taxation.

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