Tax - Local Income Question
 

I'm having a CPA do my taxes for the first time this year. He said on my W2 it show "local wages, tips, etc" around $8,000 and showing the city as Philadelphia, where I was based last year (live in Florida, Denver airline). He said because it shows me having income in Philadelphia, it may be better to submit a tax return to the state of PA. He's not an airline-specific CPA and I'm not sure exactly the rules pertaining to this.

Any advice/help regarding this? I have never lived in PA.

Thanks!

Anything is legal till challenged...
or is it better to say it's better to ask forgiveness than permission?
Doesn't sound kosher....not a CPA, but do know of people that had their "CPA" disappear overnight to some small island, years of taxes unpaid.....
Having lived all over the country, I have always shown the address where I register my car and vote as home...
Some years have to apportion my wages if I switched bases and moved, doing two state income tax forms.
Current live in NH, and know many pilots (truckers use it too) live here and as long as you work in multiple States, you fall under the Amtrak exemption, and only pay taxes where you are a resident.
if you have a second home, maybe a car registered it's obviously more complicated trying to say you were only working at a location and never having established a residence.

Here is what I think that you are looking for. (f)(2) is the important part.

As long as your fight time over PA was less than 50% of your total flight time then you should not owe any PA taxes. Good luck fighting with the City of Brotherly Love.

2)The pay of an employee of an air carrier having regularly assigned duties on aircraft in at least 2 States is subject to the income tax laws of only the following:
(A)the State or political subdivision of the State that is the residence of the employee.
(B)the State or political subdivision of the State in which the employee earns more than 50 percent of the pay received by the employee from the carrier.

Great link.... have always been told the Amtrak exemption worked for pilot's and truckers, had never seen this gem.

Awesome, thanks!

PA would love to have your taxes!

But FL would not be happy if you didn't also pay them, since presumably they know you live there.

As others said, file in your home state and try to make sure you don't do 50% in-state flying in the domicile state. It would be hard to do 50% of your flying in a small state like PA anyway, but regional pilots can get screwed in big states like CA and TX if they're doing mostly local-ish flying. I definitely exceeded 50% in-state in the turboprop days but fortunately I lived in CA anyway.

Not actually having a state income tax, I doubt Florida is expecting any though...;)