I am a graduate student in New York City. I receive a scholarship that covers tuition and extra award for room and board. I understand that this extra award is taxable even if the college did not give me any 1099 forms and did not include extra award in the 1098-T form. The question is whether I have to file as part-year NYC resident and pay state and city taxes or as nonresident and pay only state taxes on New York source of income. I moved to NYC in July 2008 and rent an apartment. Turbotax says that college students can claim their home state as residence. Yet the NYS and NYC resident definition is really confusing. It looks like my domicile is still in California since my stay in New York City is temporary (though it will be for 5 years). However my place of abode is my apartment in New York City. Whether it can be considered permanent or not I don't know. It is definitely livinig quarters mainained in NYC. This year I spent their 168 days. Next year it will be more than 184 days and instructions to Form IT-203-B say that I may be considered a resident in that case. I guess that there are plenty of graduate students in New York City and there should be a standard answer to the resident status of a graduate student for income taxes. I called New York Tax Authority and they say that if I live in New York City I am a resident but I am not convinced in the quality of their advice since the person did not understand why it mattered and was not even aware that resident status affects taxes.

There IS a standard answer: ALL full-time students who originate from somewhere OTHER than NY City are considered, by law, non-residents of NY City.

File as a non-resident. If the city challenges the filing, just provide proof you your full-time student status.