Three states, California, New Jersey and Alabamans, do not conform to federal HSA legislation and therefore tax earnings from HSA accounts. This causes two difficulties:
- You have to pay taxes on the earnings (duh)
- Your custodian isn't required to send you any 1099s which makes filing state income taxes a pain.
So what's the best thing to put in the account that is tax efficient and not a giant pain in the butt? The options I see are:
- Invest in treasury bonds to which state taxes don't apply
- Invest in a tax efficient mutual fund and figure things out at tax time.
I'm leaning towards option two because treasury bonds aren't part of my planned allocation (I use a diversified intermediate term bond fund, VBIIX) and I already have a large enough bond allocation (I could adjust things in my other accounts though).
What do you Californians/New Jerseyans/Alabamans do?
edit:
this thread is informative
edit2: Idaho != Alabama