Hello,

I work 3 days a week in MA (in the office) and I work 2 days a week out of my home in NH. According to my tax advisor MA cannot charge me income tax while I'm working in NH. I was instructed to get a letter from my company that states I work 2 days a week in NH and I would receive a greater tax return. Is this correct?

Thank you

Please confirm that your W2 shows your entire wages as MA-sourced. If so, your best bet is to talk to your employer about reissuing your W2 to show that 60% is from MA and 40% is from NH. But I doubt he'll do that for you- it's an admin nightmare and if he doesn't have an NH office established it could be costly to set up. So you're stuck with a W2 that says all your wages are MA-sourced, in which case the MA income tax form won't let you allocate a portion of your wages to another state. The letter from your employer may help, but it's a long shot. I suspect that this may work only if he states that they do not provide any office facilities for you to use on those two days/week - in other words you are working from NH because you are required to, not because it's convenient. It may also help if he could state that you do work solely for NH clients those days - for example if you are in sales and only make sales calls on NH clients on those days. But because your W2 says MA on it, I think you are setting yourself up for some nasty correspondence with the MA tax authorities.

Ask your accountant if he can provide a copy of a letter that has worked for other clients of his in situations like this.

By the way - here is some corrsponence that talks about your exact situation:

TaxAlmanac - Discussion:State Income Tax - MA, NH (http://www.taxalmanac.org/index.php/Discussion:State_Income_Tax_-_MA,_NH)