Please help.
My husband lives in NY and works in NY. I live and work in NJ. My husband had a job in NY that required residency at the beginning of the year. He has since been laid off and is collecting unemployment in NY. In truth he travels back and forth from his place in NY (where he lives with his parents) to my home in NJ. I don't really spend any time in NY. The gentleman preparing our taxes says that, since NJ state return status must match the federal, in order to maintain separate addresses, we had to file as married filing separately, which we did.
I didn't think that sounded right, so I did some research and called him back (after it had already been filed). I ran some rough numbers and filing jointly on federal saves us about $2000.
He insists the only options are to:
1. File federal, NY and NJ as married filing separately, (as he submitted it)
or
2. Have my husband "move" to NJ as of November and file from NJ with him as a partial year resident (he didn't specify what he would do with the ny in that case since i was never a resident there)
My concern with 2 is that if he changes his address to NJ and hasn't notified Unemployment, there might be an issue which will delay or cancel his payments, which we really need.
Is there not a way to file NY and NJ state returns MFJ with one spouse as a resident with income in that state and the other as a non-resident with no income in that state? He says there's no way to do that. He's done my taxes for several years and seems knowledgable but I just don't understand why we can't file MFJ with separate residencies and wanted to get confirmation.
I'm tempted to bring everything to someone else to review, but don't honestly have to money to pay someone again.
Any advice is appreciated. I know different states have different rules so anyone who knows specifically about NY/NJ would be great.
Thank you so much
My husband lives in NY and works in NY. I live and work in NJ. My husband had a job in NY that required residency at the beginning of the year. He has since been laid off and is collecting unemployment in NY. In truth he travels back and forth from his place in NY (where he lives with his parents) to my home in NJ. I don't really spend any time in NY. The gentleman preparing our taxes says that, since NJ state return status must match the federal, in order to maintain separate addresses, we had to file as married filing separately, which we did.
I didn't think that sounded right, so I did some research and called him back (after it had already been filed). I ran some rough numbers and filing jointly on federal saves us about $2000.
He insists the only options are to:
1. File federal, NY and NJ as married filing separately, (as he submitted it)
or
2. Have my husband "move" to NJ as of November and file from NJ with him as a partial year resident (he didn't specify what he would do with the ny in that case since i was never a resident there)
My concern with 2 is that if he changes his address to NJ and hasn't notified Unemployment, there might be an issue which will delay or cancel his payments, which we really need.
Is there not a way to file NY and NJ state returns MFJ with one spouse as a resident with income in that state and the other as a non-resident with no income in that state? He says there's no way to do that. He's done my taxes for several years and seems knowledgable but I just don't understand why we can't file MFJ with separate residencies and wanted to get confirmation.
I'm tempted to bring everything to someone else to review, but don't honestly have to money to pay someone again.
Any advice is appreciated. I know different states have different rules so anyone who knows specifically about NY/NJ would be great.
Thank you so much