<p>My son is filing a tax return for the first time this year. He is a college freshman, attending college in Massachusettes from OOS. The sources of income he needs to report this year are:
1) $1400 wages from a research assistance job on campus
2) two scholarships used towards room and board, one from NMSC and the other one from a national civic organization
3) a small amount in college grants that were applied towards room and board.
My question is this: even though he is a resident of another state (our home state), should he be able to file a state tax return ONLY for the state of Massachusetts? I'm not sure what he needs to consider the sources of the two national scholarships to be, for state tax reporting purposes.</p>
<p>He needs to only file in the state that is his legal address unless the wages were earned in another state ( this applies to the Northeast, other states like VA, MD and Washington DC have a different agreement between the bordering states) …although a good idea to check on his W-2’s in box 16 which state the wages were reported to </p>
<p>Therein lies my confusion. His legal address is still his home state out west. However, his wages were paid from his college in Massachusetts, and were reported to that state per the W-2. He didn’t receive tax forms for his scholarship monies (which came from national headquarters in other states). I am thinking that maybe he could just file a Massachusetts state return, but I’m wondering if he is obligated to apportion the scholarship monies to his home state (state of legal address), and therefore have to file a state return for his home state as well?</p>
<p>I’m not sure about the scholarship money, but I would recommend checking each state to see what their filing requirements are. Check to see what the maximum he can earn as a non-resident and not have to file in MA. </p>
<p>We’re in OR, and their definition of a Resident is someone domiciled in OR, which means D2 needs to pay taxes on earnings made anywhere. And while she doesn’t have to file in CA because the amount she made from WS was below their threshold for Non-residents, she will have to file in ID as a Non-resident as her summer earnings there were above their threshold.</p>
<p>It’s a nightmare, last year I filed taxes in 4 states for D1.</p>
<p>Entomom- can’t imagine filing 4 states- 2 states for 2 of the kids put me over the edge. </p>
<p>OP- definitely check both state’s filing requirements. We live in IL and end up filing both IL and IN returns even though wages are almost all from IN.</p>
<p>States vary in their requirements so you have to check both your home state and his school state like entomom says above. </p>
<p>My son goes to school in NY and had to file state taxes there as a non-resident AND in his home state of California as a resident. As a dependent on our taxes, he had to file in NY for income more than $3050. The NY return had a place to write in NY Source Income that included his grant from college but California had him report all income including his local scholarship money received in California. He had to pay taxes in NY and then got a credit for those taxes paid on the California return but still had to file all 3 returns. </p>
<p>Here is what Mass says: Nonresidents are required to file income tax returns with Massachusetts if their Massachusetts gross income (derived from sources within Massachusetts) exceeds either $8,000 or the prorated personal exemption to which they are entitled, whichever is less. Nonresidents file Massachusetts Form 1 NR/PY- Nonresident/Part-Year Resident Individual Income Tax Return. The prorated personal exemption: (PE) formula:</p>
<p>PE per filing status x Massachusetts gross income (from sources within MA) = Prorated PE
Massachusetts gross income from all sources </p>
<p>You didn’t say what you consider a “small amount of grants” for room and board so you have to check each state. Yes, we were pulling out our hair trying to figure all of this out! Between parents and one kid, we did 5 returns and I highly recommend using some tax software to do it. Thanks to annoyingdad, I was able to complete it all and get AOC credit, too, so post here again if you need more help and others will chime in. </p>