I am still struggling to file my 2008 NY state tax return. I am a Florida resident but worked in NY for 6 months during 2008. The NY nonresident tax return(IT-203) calculates NY wages by taking the total number of days lived in NY by the total days worked for the year and applies that ratio to your federal gross income.
For most cases this can work, as its just a straitline calculation. However my wages for the year was not straightlined.

I earned a significant bonus in Florida prior to me moving to NY and now by using this calculation, the state of NY is trying to collect taxes on wages earned outside the state of NY. I want to be able to make some kind of adjustment on the tax return to reduce my NY wages but there is no place to make this adjustment. Is there possibly another form I can use? Legally can the state of NY collect taxes earned outside the state?

Any help or feedback is very much appreciated.

Thanks,
Josh

Those NY forms are very, very confusing. As you look at schedule IT-203-B keep in mind that since your permanent abode is FL, you are considered to have been non-resident of NY for the time you lived and worked there - see the instructions, page 57, for the definitions: www.tax.state.ny.us/pdf/2008/inc/it203i_2008.pdf It sounds backwards, but that's why they ask about "days employed as a non-resident" in lines 1a through 1h when logic would tell you that what they meant to ask was "days employed while working in NY." So where ever the forms ask about your "non-resident" income they are NOT asking about your FL income, but rather your NY income. The amount you enter on schedule B in line 1o is the income you earned as a non-resident, which means the income you earned while working in NY, but you do NOT include the income you earned while living in FL. The income you earned while living and working in FL is not counted at all on Schedule A. And the calculation of days in lines 1a through 1h is for the portion of time you were a non-resident (that is, living in NY), and line 1n (where you calculate the ratio) will turn out to be 1.000. Hence you include all income you earned while a "nonresident" (i.e. your NY income).

Clear as mud?