Spouse Home of Record

J

Jcleppe

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Feb 10, 2010
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I have a question for those active duty service members that have a spouse that is working. When a service member gets married and their spouse goes through Deers, are they able to list their Home of Record as the State they came from? If they are able to do this does this effect them in regard to State Taxes for the State where they currently reside.

Example: If a service member were to marry and their spouse is from say Washington where there is no State income tax but they are currently stationed in Hawaii where there is a State income tax, would the spouse be able to list their Home of Record as Washington and then be able to get a refund on the Hawaiian State Income Tax that they take out of the spouses pay check or is there a way they can not have those taxes taken out at all.

Thanks for any answers you may have.
 
Thanks. I’ll add one kicker to that question. What if they were engaged when he was transferred to Hawaii and his fiancée moved with him and they get married while in Hawaii. Her original home was also Washington State.

Sorry should have added that part in my original question. Thanks again.
 
I’m not sure on that one. I would expect that she would be eligible, but I’ll leave it to someone who knows for sure.

Stealth_81
 
I'm not a tax specialist, but "usually" a filing status is what you were on Dec 31st of the tax year. But, if you have to pay $250 to a good CPA, that will sign your 1040 as the preparer, its probably money well spent. Free advice from a forum is worth exactly that.
 
Most states have resident, non-resident, and part year resident returns.

In Hawaii for instance, part year residents would file N15 as opposed to N11.

I suspect if you are a spouse coming from a state without income tax (like Washington) and you work in the non-income State (Washington), and the military spouse is in Hawaii, it would be advantageous to file a federal return, no Washington return, and a part year joint return for hawaii.

I could spend some time reviewing it - I’m a CPA in New York and don’t know Hawaiian rules.

The advantage seems to be if you moved to Hawaii and worked in Hawaii as the military spouse, it could be taxable in Washington instead (thus no state tax).
 
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Just be smart about the residency requirements. It's not as simple as changing the withholding state. There are a lot of servicemembers that attempt to claim TX (for example) without realizing there are only 5 or 6 life events that qualify as establishing residency in TX. Military finance personnel will let you change your withholding state without a question, but if you never actually performed the required action(s) to establish residency in said state, then you leave yourself open to your previous state (or current duty state) making a tax claim on your income.

I've seen that a lot with folks that were in FL or TX for several months for training, and then assumed they could just switch their residency to that state to avoid income tax while they were there since they "lived" there on base.

Also, some states require you file a state tax return for all income earned in that state, regardless of whether you have any tax liability for that state. I have had to do that before. It all got zeroed out at the end of the form (as I was obviously not a resident), but it was still required because I was stationed in that state.
 
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