soCAL

For the record, I have always been happy to pay someone to do my taxes for me, and this is the first year I've had to do them on my own. The only reason I ended up having to do them on my own is because I was turned away from four different tax advisors. Mostly because I didn't move back to CA until part of the way through Feb. and I think when they realized how long the taxes would take they realized they were too busy already with other clients to take me on. I think they probably make more money off doing taxes for more people that have easier taxes than dealing with one individual who changes jobs all the time, opened up a business, had 1099s and worked in two states. I decided because of my hectic schedule (I work very long hours most of the year as I'm self employed, and the field I work in works 12-15 hour days 6-7 day weeks often) and because I had to move overseas while in the process of doing my taxes, that a tax software might be easiest. I was really very wrong, and wish my circumstances could of been different, and have definitely learned my lesson. That said I did do a lot of research and regularly emailed the the people from my tax software to make sure I was doing it properly. I also had four years worth of prepared returns to look at as a basis to follow, but this was the first year I worked out of state, so I had nothing to compare for that. Thank you to Jainen for your reply. I gather from this that what I thought would be the case, and what actually is the case are two different things, but in working with-in the tax software and from my research online, I feel more confident that I applied everything correctly. I had kept my state AGIs the same as my federal, but I wasn't sure if it was correct or not. I'd never would of posted, except I came across this mb through my research and thought I'd give it a go. Since I now live out of the country it's not that easy to find someone to help, and it takes a while to receive replies sometimes from taxact. My taxes are completed, I just wanted to make sure they were right. Thanks very much.

Ok so the story is I am a resident of CA and I worked in CT for a few months last year, but then returned to CA as it was temporary work only. So for ease of use, let's say I made $50,000 last year total. $20,000 was made in CT and $30,000 was made in CA. I am using tax act software and when I filled out my W2 via the forms, I put which in states made which amount on the W2 forms, but then when I got to filling out forms for CA and CT, it displayed my state adjusted income on both states to be the same as my federal adjusted income. Would this be correct? Logically to me it would seem my AGI would be different for both CA and CT but would equal my Federal AGI. I've looked and looked online, but haven't really found the answers I am looking for about where to make the adjustments or deductions. For CT I filled out the FORM CT-1040NR/PY. My Federal AGI matches my CT AGI (lines 1 and 5) as the deductions and adjustments listed above didn't seem to apply to my via the questions I answered in the tax act software. I did fill out a CT-SI saying what I actually earned in CT (in the case above, in which I made $20,000 in CT; the number on line 6 would say $20,000) My Question for this is, is this the correct approach for telling CT how much I earned in the state of CT, instead of trying to adjust the AGI? For CA I filled out the FORM 540 and Schedule S. For line 12 (state wages from your W-2 forms, box 16) Taxact has again supplied my federal AGI (ie: $50,000) instead of my actual CA earnings (ie: $30,00). Seeing no way to adjust this via the software, I did some research and learned I could fill out a Schedule S for double taxation of taxes. So I entered the difference there, based on my CT earnings and my wages withholding in CT. Now I didn't actually pay double taxes to CA, I only paid to CT, however, since it seems that state form is acting like I should pay money to CA on that money (as it looks like I didn't pay CA tax amounts on it at all) I decided this was probably the right way to address it. Is that a correct assessment? Or is there someway I should try to correct the AGI of CA and CT to be what was actually paid to each state? I have emailed tax act about this a number of times, but they are not open on the weekend and to give this an even more fun twist, I live out of the country and they have a huge time difference on me, and can only email and wait for answers because of it. Their answers haven't really be all the helpful to me as I am still clearly very confused, although they did make some suggestions, but don't seem to answer all my questions. Thank you very much for any insight you can give me on this.