So I’ve been slowly doing my taxes the last couple weeks as I’ve been waiting for W2s and 1098′s for student loans. This year my taxes have been a little difficult because I lived in California and DC but also worked in Virginia at Abercrombie. So I have to file 3 different state returns. It gets more complicated. It’s hard to tell whether I’m a California resident or a DC resident. If I choose to be a DC resident, I only get $140 back from state taxes in DC. If I choose to be a CA resident, I get $1230 back from DC but then I OWE CA $226.
It gets better.
I owe the Commonwealth of Virginia, $1. ONE DOLLAR. I only made $171 at Abercrombie because I worked there a month. How is it that I owe both California and Virginia money?!
I moved to DC mid January 2008 then moved back to CA during the summer and then back to DC in August. In January before I moved to DC, I made around $500. Now when I add that income to my taxes, I only paid $59 in federal taxes on that $500 amount for some odd reason, so it calculates me owing that $226 figure I mentioned earlier. I’m going to call the accountant back in CA who prepared that W2 because I should have paid more taxes than that. Because I didn’t pay enough taxes on that amount, it’s causing me to owe half that amount.
This all sounds really complicated but I’ve been doing my own taxes for 4 years now and I know what I’m doing. So the question is, do I stay a California resident and get more money back TOTAL and pay out $227 in taxes to CA and VA? Or do I takes less money and not have to pay the states? At the moment, I’m leaning towards just paying the $227 because then it keeps me a California resident. I also stay a resident as long as I keep a California drivers license. But another catch is that if I live in DC for more than 183 days, then DC considers me a resident.
Taxes. Not for the weak. One day when I’m all grown up, I’ll pay an accountant to handle them. I don’t really have any assets so it’s usually not this complicated to do my taxes. I just don’t want to pull a “Geitner” and use Turbo Tax when I should be using an accountant.
