I should've been an accounting major

April 5, 2009 8:52 AM

We live in Virginia, but my boyfriend's employer paid state taxes to DC instead of Virginia! Now what?

My boyfriend worked three jobs last year - two of them paid state taxes to Virginia (those blessed employers) but one of them, a company based in NYC, paid taxes to DC. I'm not sure if it's because the place where he worked was based in DC, but that's the only explanation I can find. He never filled out a state tax form; they never gave him one to fill out.

Now I'm trying to do his taxes (shoddily - I am not good at this) and I am at a loss. Are we supposed to get a refund from the DC taxes? How might one do this? I realize this is probably a really simple answer, but I've never had to deal with this before and the IRS website isn't that friendly (or else I don't know how to word what I'm trying to do).

posted by kerning to Work & Money (6 answers total)

Best answer: My employer withheld District of Columbia income tax, and I am not a resident of DC. Which form do I file to receive a refund?

Use Form D-40B, Non-Resident Request for Refund (available in the Tax Forms/Publications section).

http://otr.cfo.dc.gov/otr/cwp/view,A,1330,Q,593771.asp
posted by raf at 9:04 AM on April 5, 2009 [1 favorite]

Best answer: (The reason you didn't find this on the IRS website, by the way, is that it's a question of state/local taxes, not federal taxes. I believe DC will require you to submit a copy of the Virginia state tax return to prove you paid taxes on the income somewhere else.)
posted by raf at 9:05 AM on April 5, 2009

There might be an even simpler solution if the employer uses a payroll service. When my company's (large, national) payroll service made an analogous error this year, they handled the correction and issued a new W-2 within 24 hours. Call the company; they can call the payroll service (if they use one) on your behalf and get it done.
posted by carmicha at 10:05 AM on April 5, 2009

Oh, in case the above is unclear, it's the payroll company that is large and national... not our tiny firm.
posted by carmicha at 10:06 AM on April 5, 2009

I feel your boyfriend's pain. I've had many, many years where I had to deal with W-2s from multiple states. To be honest, I have always just used TurboTax and let them guide me through it, since each state has a different way that they handle residents who earned money outside the state.
posted by lunasol at 10:07 AM on April 5, 2009

This happened to my husband a few years back. We filed our taxes in Virginia, counting all the money he had earned (including what he had paid DC taxes on) as part and parcel of his income tax filing in VA. Then we filled out the form that raf linked to above to recoup the taxes he had paid to D.C. You have to include your VA tax forms to show that you did actually pay taxes on that money. It was really a fairly speedy and easy process, it just sucked to have that money in the DC coffers for a year rather than in ours!
posted by gemmy at 4:43 PM on April 5, 2009