I have a son who started his college on Sept. 2017, moving from Pennsylvania where we live to California where he studies. He made just barely enough ($6500) from 2017 summer intern ($6000) and college work-study ($500) to have to file federal return. This is not a problem for us.

The question for us is how should he file state tax returns? My intuitive thinking is he needs to file PA return with the earning of $6000 while he still was PA resident, and also file CA return with the school earning of $500 after he arrived on campus.

Is this the right way to proceed? Any comments would be appreciated.

John Wu

The question for us is how should he file state tax returns?=========>As you mentioned here, since your kid moved from PA to CA on Sep 2017, he needs to file his return as a socalled part year resident of PA and CA; what I mean is that your kid needs to report any taxable income that he earned as a part year resident of PA to PA dept of revenue( because he did not reside in PA for th e whole year); this means that all taxable income that he earned before Sep 2017 before his movin? to CA to PA dept of revenue and also needs to report any taxable income that he earned as a patrt year resident of CA to CA. as you can see he is a part-year resident of CA since he is an individual who is a CA resident for part of the year of 2017and a nonresident of CA(from jan to sep 2017) for part of the year .inthis case he doesnot need to report any taxable income that he earned after his movin? to CA, I mean income that he earned as a part year resident.

My intuitive thinking is he needs to file PA return with the earning of $6000 while he still was PA resident, and also file CA return with the school earning of $500 after he arrived on campus.========>Agreed as you said, since he earned $6K in PA as a part year resident of PA, he needs to report the income to PA dept of revenue (he does not need to report the same income to CA FTB )and he needs to report th e taxable income of $500 that he earned in CA after he moved to CA to CA FTB( again he does not need to report the same income of $500 to PA dept of revenue).as a Part-year resident of CA, your kid is Taxed on all income received while a part year resident .