Court rules telecommuter must pay taxes

[Raina]

I found this rather interesting, especially since I belive some of you do or at least did something similar?

-Rai
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ALBANY, N.Y. -- A telecommuter who lives out of state while working by computer for a New York employer must pay New York tax on his full income, the state's highest court ruled Tuesday in a case that could have wide implications in the growing practice.

Court rules telecommuter must pay taxes (http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/03/29/court_rules_telecommuter_must_pay_taxes/)

[Kyrian]

Technically it was just a loophole that was being abused.

I used to work in Manhattan and was able to telecommute from home (in CT) once per week. You might think that as a result 20% of my taxes would be CT taxes, and 80% would be NY taxes. With NY taxes being outrageous, that would be a break, but the reality is that I was working for a NY office 5 days a week. Telecommuting is just allowing you to work from home, not working from another office location.

On the opposite side of the fence, my new company has a dozen offices all over the US. Each year we are required to report what % of time we spend in each one, some people spend 40% of their year in NY, and 40% in CT and 20% in San Fran, and have to pay taxes that way.

I can understand why the court ruled the way they did. New York provided the job, the pay, etc, so you shouldnt be able to skip out on NYC taxes just because you took your laptop across the border (unless there is an actual corporate office there).


Related to all of this, I got quite annoyed with NYC taxes, which is 7-8% (compared to 5% in CT). In addition, NY also charged an arm and a leg for sales tax, an arm and a leg for everything else too.

When I was working there, there was a big battle about a subway fare hike. NY wanted to double the subway fares and train fares, specifically for out of state workers (like myself coming from CT). I took this as somewhat of a slap in the face. I didn't like the attitude that NY had which was that it's a luxury and a favor to be able to commute all the way into that dirty stink hole just to work there. IMO 75% of the true power that is NY City is the people commuting in from Long Island, Connecticut and New Jersey. If they continue to slap people in the face for commuting in and making it so expensive, people will just stop commuting there to work. That's what I did. I took a job in CT for slightly less money, but it evens out with the lesser taxes.