Having dealt with them their position is always that you owe them money!

CA tax rules are quite simple. If you breathe California’s air, they think you should pay a tax.

they occasionally go after part of military retired pay if you were ever stationed their. Don’t they have ever been successful but they sure keep trying.

if you don’t like taxes, stay away from California.

I got a letter from the CA franchise board coming after me for taxes when I was based in Oakland. I called the admin people in the base and they said “yea they do that to everyone. Don’t pay them, you were not working in CA 50% or more of the time. Shred the letter. Bid out of Oakland when you can.”

haven’t heard from them since. Probably not the best advice, but you can’t beat the results.

I've been under the impression for quite some time now that California must spend more on tax collectors than they receive on taxes. Just too much aggresive "you owe us" that must require a lot of labor to collect and also must be easy to rebuff under federal law most of the time. This is just based on news stories I've read. I don't even bother to breath California air.

Yeah, that is definitely the impression I get. Land of milk, honey, fruits & nuts.

This is an extremely common issue with commuting Ca pilots. Talk to your flight office They’ve also dealt with this same situation. If you don’t get the answer you’re looking for talk to a tax expert who is familiar with transportation workers and airline pilots in particular.

The simple answer is that you don’t owe California income tax as a commuting airline pilot. Though Ca will give it the old college try to see if you’re stupid enough to bite. There is a specific exemption for commuting airline pilots not paying income tax outside of their state of residence.

I commuted to LAX and SFO for a total of 3 years on reserve . Ca tried to hit me up for income tax. As per my tax expert I ignored them and they went away. Paying Ca SDI is another story and at least at the time that was a good deal.

They tried to tax me after I was stationed there on active duty living on an Army base. Sent a letter to my home in another state after I left the military and moved telling me I owed them money. Quite obnoxious if you ask me.

Generally you probably won't have to pay. There are some complications, somebody mentioned express pilots and that was a thing. Turboprop guys who drove in from NV or AZ and then flew in the SOCAL system could get tagged because most or all of their work was in-state. That was a while back, don't know if there has been any change there but at least with RJ's you have a better chance of crossing the state line often enough to avoid the threshold.

Probably best to ask an accountant who does airline pilot taxes. Or somebody might have written an article on that, just make sure it's recent as laws do change over time.

That described California state government in a nutshell.