# Tax Question\* **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 14, 2012, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tax-question/628159 "2012-07-14T00:22:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2012, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tax-question/628159/21 "2012-07-15T16:15:47Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > I suppose it might be a general rule, but the OP will still have to check with the states involved. > > My son is not a professional athlete or even a professional actor, but he has gotten a couple of non-speaking parts in commercials. In one case, he was hired by a New York based company for a commercial that was shot in NJ. The W-2 came with NJ tax information on it. He would have had to pay NJ non-resident income tax but for the fact that his NJ income was below the filing threshold. And that’s probably the reason that many people aren’t affected by non-resident taxes - they don’t earn enough in an individual state to meet the threshold. Professional athletes and entertainers often will , but it’s not impossible for others to meet the threshold That fits perfectly with the rule; that employment relationship arose in New Jersey. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2012, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tax-question/628159/22 "2012-07-15T17:06:16Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > That fits perfectly with the rule; that employment relationship arose in New Jersey. Then maybe I misunderstood your correction. First you said > [@](#): > > Whether or not you have to file a return in a given state where income was earned depends on the state’s laws. The general rule is yes - though for obvious reasons, enforcement is difficult if not impossible. which my son’s situation absolutely fits. You then corrected it to > [@](#): > > Whoops. That should say the general rule is no for employees whose employment relationship arises out of a particular state. I’m not sure how my son being hired by a NY based employer and sent to work for a day in NJ is different from an employee of a temp agency based in NY being sent on a assignment to Connecticut or any employee of a company based in their home state (say an MLB batboy) being assigned to work out of state. Can you explain what you mean by the state where the employment relationship arose? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2012, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tax-question/628159/23 "2012-07-15T17:19:36Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > I’m not sure how my son being hired by a NY based employer and sent to work for a day in NJ is different from an employee of a temp agency based in NY being sent on a assignment to Connecticut or any employee of a company based in their home state (say an MLB batboy) being assigned to work out of state. He was hired for a specific job that was to be performed in New Jersey. It doesn’t matter where his employer was based. If you were an employee of Best Buy (based in Minnesota), and you worked at their store in Trenton, you wouldn’t pay Minnesota income taxes. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2012, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tax-question/628159/24 "2012-07-15T18:08:24Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > He was hired for a specific job that was to be performed in New Jersey. It doesn’t matter where his employer was based. If you were an employee of Best Buy (based in Minnesota), and you worked at their store in Trenton, you wouldn’t pay Minnesota income taxes. If I , as a NY resident were hired by Best Buy to work in a NYC store, I would pay NY income taxes, not Minnesota. But if I were then sent to work in the Trenton store, even temporarily , I would owe NJ non-resident tax if I met the filing threshold. And the same goes for the NY resident sent by a temp agency to work in NJ, as well as not only non NJ-resident professional athletes and actors but every other non NJ-resident who travels with the team or production. But when you said the general rule is > [@](#): > > no for employees whose employment relationship arises out of a particular state. I understood you to be correcting your earlier statement to “Whether or not you have to file a return in a given state where income was earned depends on the state’s laws. The general rule is no for employees whose employment relationship arises out of a particular state - though for obvious reasons, enforcement is difficult if not impossible.” which I took to mean that NJ is an exception to the general rule, not that it fits the rule. If this sounds argumentative, I don’t mean it to, but I just don’t understand if you’re saying that most states require non-residents to file returns on income earned within the state if it meets the filing threshold or that most states don’t. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tax-question/628159.md?page=1)