Author Topic: Married Couple, one works and lives in CA and the other in Washington  (Read 1352 times)

younessi

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Both CA and Washington are community states. In this case, would the one in CA be forced to pick up half of the income from Washington state and pay tax? Can they file MFJ on Fed and MFS on CA? Thank you for your help. 


BTW, is there anyway not to have to verify each time one posts here?

SeattleCPA

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Re: Married Couple, one works and lives in CA and the other in Washington
« Reply #1 on: March 12, 2018, 10:02:12 AM »
Both CA and Washington are community states. In this case, would the one in CA be forced to pick up half of the income from Washington state and pay tax? Can they file MFJ on Fed and MFS on CA? Thank you for your help. 


BTW, is there anyway not to have to verify each time one posts here?

Half of income of the spouse who works in Washington state belongs to the other spouse who resides in CA. Accordingly, CA gets to tax all of the earned in CA because it's earned in CA... and then it gets to tax half of the income earned in WA because it gets sourced to the CA resident.

I think there is a way around this: Spouses can have an agreement that says their earnings aren't community property. But from what I've been told by a tax attorney, an oral agreement might be pretty hard to prove.

younessi

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Re: Married Couple, one works and lives in CA and the other in Washington
« Reply #2 on: March 12, 2018, 01:51:52 PM »
Thank You for the reply. That was my understanding. It seems unfair. Would you have a link to the agreement you mentioned. That would be very helpful.

SeattleCPA

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Re: Married Couple, one works and lives in CA and the other in Washington
« Reply #3 on: March 12, 2018, 06:01:39 PM »
No link, sorry. :-(


4lo

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