Taxes out of my check

[lauren.skyla]

What is the name of your state? Rhode Island. I have been working for this company since March, and I just realized that they are takign GA state taxes out of my check not RI. I have brought it up to my supervisors attention but they are dragging their feet with a response to me. I feel that this is a big issues here with income tax season coming up. Can you help? thanks

 

[Some Random Guy]

Plan on filing RI and GA tax returns. GA should refund your money if you didn't work or live in the state. Is your supervisor the right person to talk to? This may be a hassle for him to have to deal with. Ask him if you can speak to HR directly so that you are closer to the solution and he is not bothered with the problem.

 

[abezon]

1. As Snipes said, you'll file a GA nonresident return & declare that none of the income is GA income, and therefore GA can't tax any of it. You should get a full refund.

2. You will file a RI resident return & have to pay a big balance due. File the GA return early so you can use the GA refund to pay RI. You'll probably also have to pay a penalty to RI for underpayment of taxes throughout the year, since RI got nothing. You probably can't get reimbursed for this from the company, since you should have known in March that your withholding was screwed up & didn't bother to fix it until now.

3. Talk to the payroll department about correcting the withholding for 2006. If the payroll dept gets stroppy, call the RI dept of revenue and give the state all the particulars. RI will send a polite "fix this or pay a big fine" letter to your company, which will then comply.

 

[dallas702]

Did anyone at your company explain why the H they would be taking GA taxes out of your pay?

 

[Snipes5]

Maybe someone at the company fell out of the stupid tree...

 

[abezon]

Most of the time when I encounter this situation, the company is withholding taxes for its state instead of taxes for the employee's state, and the payroll dept is too lazy to find out the withholding requirements for other states.

 

[dallas702]

I can understand a mistake if there were actually two states involved in the work or residence, but OP didn't mention working or living in GA at any time. Maybe we should assume OP moved from GA? Could be, but that still doesn't explain why a RI company would send any tax info to GA if OP is living and working in RI. Or, maybe I'm not seeing the forest.

 

[Snipes5]

It might if the HR office is in GA...

Snipes

 

[abezon]

Lots of companies have branches in multiple states but only 1 payroll dept. Also, with telecommuting becoming more common, companies can have a few employees who don't live in-state. Both situations give the payroll dept a chance to screw up the withholding.