Harlan Lunsford wrote:
- quote -

They = the bad guys! Gov't


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Katie wrote:
- quote -

Live:, Deer Park OH, Work: Blue Ash OH

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Katie <118os1bbnt1scd8[at]corp.supernews.com> wrote:
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That's a pretty good summary. But I'll bet if I try a bit,
I can confuse the issue pretty well.

I've done more than one Ohio city return this season, so
here's a brief brief summary:

1. Everyone who works in an OH city that has a city income
tax must pay tax to the workplace city. The employer is
required to withhold for the workplace city.

2. Everyone who lives in a city with an income tax must pay
city income tax to the city of residence.

3. Many cities of residence allow a credit for tax paid to
other OH cities. Some allow full credit, some allow
partial credit, some allow no credit at all.

Some examples: a) work in Columbus live in Whitehall

Employer must W/h Columbus income tax and
Whitehall allows full credit for tax
paid to Columbus, so you owe Whitehall nothing.

However Whitehall has mandatory filing so even
though you owe Whitehall nothing, you must file.


b) work in Columbus and live in Lithopolis

Columbus w/h full 2% as workplace city and
Lithopolis allows no credit so owe Lithopolis
an additional 1%


c) work in Columbus and live in Pickerington

Columbus w/h full 2% and Pickerington allows
a credit of 0.5% and you will owe Pickerington
an additional 0.5%.


Next: What is city income?

Wages are always taxable to the city, and lots of other
stuff like rental income, self employment income, jury duty,
bonuses, and especially employer savings plan contributions
that are not taxable for federal purposes. And other
stuff.

There are lots of reasons why box 5 and box 18 can be
different. For example, if you didn't work in the workplace
city some part of the year, perhaps you were assigned to
work in another city or another state for a few weeks, then
box 18 would be expected to be less than box 5.

Or suppose you received some employer benefit that is not
taxable for social security/medicare but is taxable for city
income tax purposes. In that case you would expect box 18
to be higher than box 5.

So for purposes of calculating city income tax, especially
residence city income tax, you must use the largest wage
figure on the W-2, among boxes 1, 5 or 18.

Then again, it is not unusual for an employer, especially a
non-Ohio employer, to get box 18 wrong.

In the example you gave us, the city is doing exactly what
cities do -- they use the largest of the box 1, 5 and 18
amounts. Sounds right to me.

__
Art Kamlet ArtKamlet [at] AOL.com Columbus OH K2PZH

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Mr Sparkle wrote:

- quote -

I take it you live in one municipality and work in another.
It would help to know which cities are involved, since each
Ohio city can impose an income tax under its own ordinance.
Some provisions have to be uniform, but there is still a lot
of variation.

In general, the city where you work taxes only your covered
earnings from services performed there, while the city where
you live taxes all of your covered earnings. One city may
give you credit for tax paid to the other to mitigate the
double taxation.

So, local wages are not necessarily local wages <G> . If you
performed only part of your services in the city where you
are a nonresident, your employer presumably would include in
Box 18 only the wages earned in that jurisdiction. The city
where you live would tax all of your wages.

Katie in San Diego

The foregoing is intended for educational purposes only and
does not constitute legal or professional advice.

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Mr Sparkle wrote:

- quote -

I'm confused. Who are "they"? the government? or
your employer?

ChEAr$,
Harlan Lunsford, EA n LA

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Got a correction on my local return where they figured my
taxes from the higher of box 5 or Box 18 on my W-2. The
municipality I work in the taxes are withheld from box 18,
so I figured mine for the muncipality where I live from Box
18. They want to use Box 5 on one of my W-2s as that is
higher. Doens't seem quite fair...Local Wages are Local
Wages?

TIA
Dan

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