To: bovik@U.ERGO.CS.CMU.EDU
cc: tsf@U.ERGO.CS.CMU.EDU, azf@U.ERGO.CS.CMU.EDU
Reply-to: Tim Freeman <tsf@cs.cmu.edu>
Subject: Pittsburgh Taxes
Date: Mon, 31 May 93 11:37:48 -0400
Message-ID: <6942.738862668@U.ERGO.CS.CMU.EDU>
From: Timothy_Freeman@U.ERGO.CS.CMU.EDU

I recently posted a query to cmu.cs.general asking how the City of
Pittsburgh taxes people who only lived in the city a fraction of the
year.  These were the responses I got.

To: tsf@CS.CMU.EDU
Subject: Re: Pittsburgh Taxes
Date: Fri, 28 May 93 12:04:06 -0500
From: David Maynard <dpm@archons.depend.com>


Last year, my wife and I were audited by the City of Pittsburgh for the
previous 5 years.  Our name was kicked out by the computer because we didn't
file a Pittsburgh tax return one year.  (Since neither of us received any
taxable income in Pittsburgh we hadn't filed.)

The result of the audit was that we ended up paying several hundred dollars
to the city.  They decided that we owed wage taxes on the money my wife made
while working for Bell Labs during the Summer (even though she was living in
New York while working there).  Since she lived in Pittsburgh the rest of
the year they claim she owed Pittsburgh taxes on the money earned in NJ.

The audit office made a lot of (mainly careless) mistakes during the course
of the audit.  Between the audit office and the billing department they sent
us no fewer than five bills with different amounts on them.  One time I
called the billing office to ask about a bill and the amount due shown in
their computer had changed in the 4 days since the bill had been printed.
(The new figure in the computer was different from all others I had seen.) I
wrote to the audit supervisor (at the recommendation of the billing
department) and was finally able to get it settled.  Given the
circumstances, the supervisor did agree to waive the penalties if we paid in
full within 30 days.  All told, it took from May '92 until Feb '93 to
resolve everything.

One key to whether you owe Pittsburgh wage taxes lies in whether they decide
you are a Pittsburgh resident.  I made a similar post last year and found
that several grad students had been audited.  About half of them ended up
paying taxes.  The key issue seemed to be whether you could show evidence
that you considered your residence to be somewhere besides Pittsburgh.  If
we had known about this in advance we could have reduced the chances of
owing Pgh tax by having ATT list a NY address on my wife's employee records.
The final decision on residency by the auditor isn't arbitrary, but it's
based on sufficiently obscure details that it might as well be.  If they
decide you are a resident then I didn't find any grounds for not paying the
tax.  I don't think the tax law is just, but it is the current law.

Good luck.

-David

--
 David P. Maynard, Carnegie Mellon University & Dependable Solutions Consulting
 USMail: 14312 Richard Walker Blvd, Austin, TX 78728-6862
 EMail: dpm@depend.com,  Tel: +1 512 251 8122,  Fax: +1 512 251 8308
--
-----------------
Date: Fri, 28 May 93 15:35:44 EDT
To: tsf@cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Pittsburgh Taxes

Hi - 

I ran into just this situation this year - although it was with my local
tax office instead of with Pittsburgh.  Since my local tax office is in
PA, my guess is that the rules are the same as Pittsburgh's. 

I worked in CA for 7 months of the tax year and the other 5 in PA.  
Here's what my local tax office said:  

	- If I am a full-time PA resident (I am), I owe both PA and local
	  taxes as though I made all my earnings in PA.  
	- I could claim a credit for any taxes I paid in CA on my PA
	  state taxes.  If there was any credit leftover, I could claim
	  that on my local taxes.  

As it turned out, the taxes I paid in CA were more than the combined
total of what I owed for PA state taxes and what I owed to my local tax 
office, so I didn't have to pay anything here.  

I believe the key for me was that I was a full-year PA resident.
According lengthy definition of PA resident in the PA-40 tax booklet,
there was no question that I was indeed a resident.  If you are only a
part-year resident, then it is my understanding that you owe taxes to
both PA and to the local office on only the money you earn while you are
a PA resident.  (Of course, if you move from one locality to another
within PA, you pay taxes to each locality on the money you earned while
you lived in that locality.)  

I believe that the answer to your question regarding what stops
Pittsburgh from claiming you owe them taxes on money you've made after
you leave is that you don't owe them taxes if you are no longer a PA
resident or if you are a PA resident, but you've moved and are paying
taxes to another locality in PA.  

Hope that's helpful - 

(If you post a summary, please remove my name.  If you'd like to know
anymore about what I found out, though, please feel free to write mail.)