How Do Taxes Work if You Work Remotely: A Guide to Navigating Your Taxes

As a remote worker, you may need to file and pay state income taxes in that location. Remote workers must also pay state income tax or local taxes depending on the worker’s state of residence. Also, cities like New York impose local taxes in addition to state and federal tax credits and tax liabilities. Employees’ state of residence and the state where they work affect which state and local taxes they pay. Sometimes, if employees live in one state but have been working in another, they’ll receive a credit on their resident tax return to offset the nonresident state tax liability. Generally, your income tax is based on where you’re physically located when earning the income.

There’s also bipartisan interest at the federal level to stop the practice, including proposed legislation called the Multi-State Worker Tax Fairness Act of 2020 that would tax remote workers by residence only. You’ll deduct income taxes from remote employees the same way you do on-site employees. Utilize the employee’s Form W-4 to determine the appropriate withholding amount. For a breakdown of payroll taxes, consider utilizing our payroll tax table for employers. This test requires that you withhold and pay taxes to the state where your organization is located, even if your employees live out of state, if they do so out of convenience. Unless you specifically require your out-of-state workers to be remote in their state, you may have to withhold taxes for your state.

UN Panel’s Plan to Tax Remote Workers Too Complex, Members Say

A tax nexus is a state’s determination that an organization has a presence in the jurisdiction. Pre-COVID-19, many states regarded remote workers as a nexus for employers based in different states. COVID-19 work-from-home orders generally stated that temporary telecommuters would not create a tax nexus https://remotemode.net/ where one would not otherwise exist. California has taken this approach, but other states have gone in different directions. Reciprocity agreements allow employees who live and work in different states to avoid tax withholding in the work state as long as all states involved maintain reciprocity.

Thus, Telebright is an important reminder of the position taxing authorities can take, as this column next delves deeper into the issues raised by a growing remote workforce. To avoid this, it’s important to notify your job where you’re living so it can withhold tax from the correct state. It’s also important to consult a tax professional, since the tax situation — as well as what it takes to be a resident of that particular state — varies drastically by state and is far from intuitive. Payroll providers like Rippling can make processing payroll for remote employees much easier.

I work remotely for a company in a different state—do I owe that state income taxes?

Ahead of tax season, here’s what to look out for when filing your taxes on remote work. Working remotely can be a boon or a bust for your taxes, depending on where you live. “We’ve put together a new work model powered by personal responsibility that gives teams and leaders the flexibility to decide how they work best given their goals,” Barbara Messing, the company’s chief marketing officer, wrote at the time. The issue roared back to life how do taxes work for remote jobs this year, and Adams softened his hard-line stance on remote work for city workers as part of contract negotiations with DC 37, which represents some 150,000 members and 89,000 retirees. Rather than trying to figure out what you owe, we’ll do all your federal and state calculations for you at once. In our post “Living in One State, Working in Another“, we explained how to file state taxes if you work in one state but live in another.