TurboTax prepared a return for us for the state where our college student earned income. She is filing in that state, showing that she is a dependent. Would a state really want us to file if we had no income there, just because our dependent did earn income there and is filing a return? Thanks for any quick answers.
Don’t think you need to file - just the dependent who earned there. This is what I have done with my college aged dependent .
How did turbo tax do this? It’s not an automatic thing.
You only file income tax returns in states where you reside and/or earn money. You parents didn’t reside in the college state…or earn money there.
@Madison85 ??
Thank you for the replies. All I can guess is that since nothing on the dependent’s return identifies who the student is a dependent of, maybe that state wants that information. I don’t mind sending it, but it is 15 pages, with 0 income to report. I may call the state and ask, or just include it with the student’s return. Thanks again!
Students who are dependents on an OOS parent’s return file state taxes in the state they live in all the time. How the state will know that the student is a dependent is that the student will not take the personal exemption.
People file non-resident returns all the time OOS too. Don’t worry about it, just file the OOS return, and answer the questions asked.
Which state is it? My kids have filed state returns for earnings while our dependents while they had college jobs in California, Massachusetts and Rhode Island and were never asked by Turbotax for parent info.
I sure hope not.
Only the child’s/student’s return should be required for the state where the school is located, assuming that the child/student is the only family member who had income sourced to that state.
Okay, I sent my question to the state, MI, and the response was that there is no need for us, the parents, to submit a return. Thanks for your replies!
Good!
But I still want to know…how did turbo tax do,this? We use TT and we have to select the states we want to file in…it does NOT choose for us.
And our kids used it all the way through college…and it never created a return for us for,their OOS locations.
If you follow the prompts in TurboTax, once you finish your federal return it sends you to your state return. You have to just click past that if you don’t want to file a state return. I live in Florida and we aren’t required to file a state return. However, TurboTax has a Tangible Personal Property Return in the program that’s there for those filers who require it. I just click past that option.
Maybe what happened in OP’s case is that they clicked on Complete State Return Now instead of passing over it and Turbo Tax went ahead and carried over the figures from the federal return.
The OP says that TT did the state return for the parents…in the state where their kid went to college…
THAT doesn’t make sense…unless the parents chose to do this!