My wife and I both worked in New York City for all of 2004. In August of that year, we moved to New Jersey, from New York City.

My W-2 accurately reflects the NY state taxes taken out over the entire year, as well as the city taxes taken out during the time we were residents.

The huge problem lies with my wife's W-2 form. When we moved, someone at her work apparently changed the information in lines 14-20 of her W-2. Her company only has an office in New York, but they changed box 14 to "NJ". Since there is no NJ office, they had no NJ employer tax ID, so they filled that in with "NA." Worst of all, they've listed none of the New York city and state taxes that were taken from her salary during 2004. Instead, they apparently only show that New Jersey state income taxes have been taken out. WHY??

So as I understand it, there are at least two major errors:

1) We need her W-2 corrected to show what NY state and city taxes were taken out in 2004;

2) We need the Jersey state taxes removed from her W-2;

And I guess 3) we also need to figure out if there were NY state taxes that were not taken off after her form was changed that also need to be accounted for.

Am I way off base or is there no rational basis for their making these changes from NY to NJ?

Given this ridiculousness, any assistance that would at least start getting us out from under this mess would be greatly appreciated. I'm filing for extensions right away.

Edbt:

You will owe a tax return to both NY state (the NYC return in embedded in the NY state return) and to NJ.

More than likely, you owe zero NJ taxes, because NJ gives a credit for NY taxes paid on income earned while a NJ resident, and NY tax rates are higher than NJ tax rates. So the fact that NJ were withheld is not a real problem. You are going to get the money back.

You do need a corrected W-2 to accurately reflect your NY state and NYC income taxes withheld. Your employer has to take care of that, so Get the pay stubs out, get with your payroll department and get the problems resolved ASAP.

File your extensions with the IRS, NY and NJ. I know you can request an extension for the IRS and NJ via the Internet, and I would be surprised if you could not do it with NY. If you know you are going to have to pay with your return, mail the extension in with a check (extensions are an extension to file, not an extension to pay).