Different state but at the VA: Taxes?

[medhead1990]

Hello collective conscious! Wanted to know if anyone had experience working for the VA doing tele across state lines. My question specifically is what state do you pay taxes too? For example if I'm doing tele with the VA in California do I get stuck paying California taxes too? or do i pay my own state taxes...

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[Sushirolls]

Technically yes... You will pay cali for work done in cali.
You will pay Home for work done in Home state.
Each state treats differently the income done out of state, so whether you double taxed or partial double taxed or each respectively seperate is unique to each state.

But your employer is supposed to be the one parsing out those state line differences, I believe.

A CPA will definitely help with these questions.

 

[comp1]

You pay taxes based on where your home is physically located. You also get locale pay based on where your home is located. Where the patient is located is not relevant. It's particularly not relevant for the VA since you can practice anywhere in the US with any state license. Many VA employees see patients all over the country. It might get more complicated if you were providing some sort of fee for service, but as a salaried VA employee, you will not be. Second that your payroll office will handle this (based on your home mailing address) and it's not something you will have to personally worry about extensively. Just file a state return where they do the withholding. Congrats on getting a 100% telehealth job! They are pretty competitive right now.

 

[FlowRate]

I was reading an article on this recently. "Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Nebraska, New York, Pennsylvania and, since the pandemic, Massachusetts" tax you if your company is based there even though you're working remotely. Apparently every other state only taxes you if you live there. Which would potentially include if you remote worked while traveling in some other state for a week, technically.

 

[deleted1100659]

. Congrats on getting a 100% telehealth job! They are pretty competitive right now.

for the VA or in general? I see a ton of telehealth jobs, though most seem to be of questionable quality.


Side note OP: how do you like working for the VA? Ive always pondered it, because I strangely enjoy the outpatient VA setting, but the VA clinic where I did residency was a train wreck so that turned me off it

 

[medhead1990]

thanks for the responses! I'm trying to see the possibility of doing tax arbitrage depending on where I work out of / where I live.

Now outside the context of the VA (which makes things a little weird) just to be sure i have this straight... If I live in state X, work in state Y as a telehealth 1099, I would be taxes on state X's taxes and not Y's (pending its not one of the states mentioned above by flowrate

@DrAmazingishere I am a PGY 4 in a 5 year program and am looking around at options. I think I could have a job at my current VA if I wanted one but am not sure I want to stay here forever. I've also seriously considered fellowships but am really sick of not making money. I've been kicking the idea of working for the VA for 5 years get vested do a fellowship as if it were a "sabbatical" and then decide if I want to go back to the VA or not.

 

[comp1]

Love the VA. 100% telehealth jobs in the VA are pretty competitive. There can be 50+ applicants for each job, which is quite unusual for physician positions which often otherwise require a lot of advertising and recruitment to get filled.