Hi, I had a question with regards to filing of state taxes for
Couple living and working in different states.My wife is a resident
Of CA and her only source of income is from CA. I am a resident of
NJ and my only source of income is from NJ. I was hoping someone
Explain how we go about filing our state taxes.

1: I am taking an example of NJ where I am a resident. Since we are
Filing a joint federal tax, how do we file our state taxes in NJ?
Do I file tax form as resident showing only my income in there and
My wife file a non resident form showing 0 income from NJ? In short
For the case of NJ do we file 2 state tax forms?

2: In the non resident form I came across the term world wide income.
In the case of my wife would that mean her sources of income only
Or would that be our combined incomes?

Thanks for your help

Tom

1. For NJ: fle as married filing separately, and report only your income (not your wife's). You can do this even though you filed jointly for your federal return. See NJ instructions, page 16: "If during the entire taxable year one spouse .. was a resident and the other a non-resident, the resident may file a separate New Jersey return. The resident computes income and exemptions as if a Federal married, filimg separate return has been filed." So only one return is needed to report your income to NJ.

2. "World-wide income" means all your income, regardless of source. If filing jointly it would inclde bothg your incomes. When filing non-resident returns, most states require you to report all world-wide income so that (a) they can check against your federal return to make sure you're not trying to hide anything, and (b) to determine what your appropriate tax bracket is. But since you're not filing as a non-resident, this really isn't relavant to your situation.