I worked for a California based company while living in Florida back in the 80s. Didn’t do much work in CA, but for a couple of days. Most of the time was running barges up and down the coast from Washington. When I got my paycheck, I see that they withheld California State Taxes. Well, come tax time, I found that I couldn’t get it back and I had to file for a refund. Using their calculations, I came up with a refund of less than a dollar. I was pretty pissed off. At the time, my late father worked for the California Franchise Tax Board, the government entity that controls state taxes. He told me that I had no recourse. The way the law was structured at the time (and my still be) is that because the company was based in CA (and their paychecks were issued from CA), I was liable to pay CA taxes for the time period that I worked for them. Oh, and even though most of my work with other companies was outside of CA, my CA tax liability was calculated by the ratio of my wages earned in CA compared to all of my wages. . . what? As far as not paying state taxes, he had some other advice for me. Over a different time period, I lived in a state that had state income taxes, but my paychecks came from a state that did not. There was no withholding. Well, after a few years, I got a love letter from my state of residency at the time (not CA) that I owed some coin for back taxes. . . his advice for me? State tax laws do not cross state borders. . . . although there are pressures that some states can place, and there are also some states that have reciprocity. So, I booked it to another income tax free state. . . . .
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