Author Topic: City income tax and working from home  (Read 549 times)

Nick1911

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City income tax and working from home
« on: February 11, 2021, 01:12:17 PM »
Kansas City, Missouri has a 1% earning tax.  It applies to people who live or work in KCMO.  Saint Louis has a similar provision.  The cities have allowed folks to claim a tax refund for days worked outside of the city in the past.

The cities are now crowing about having to refund that tax to people who have worked from home in 2020 due to the pandemic.  St Louis has come out and said that they don't intend to issue refunds on those taxes.  And, it's looking like they are going to get sued over it. 

https://www.kmov.com/news/class-action-lawsuit-threatened-over-the-city-earnings-tax-amid-pandemic/article_192f1d10-6b2d-11eb-9c20-8f9aaf812766.html

KC is on the fence, and hasn't made any definitive moves yet, but they are thinking about it.

For context; the Kansas City metropolitan area is split between Missouri and Kansas.  While a good amount of business infrastructure including downtown proper are in Missouri, many of the higher paid workers choose to live on the Kansas side of the city, where the nicer neighborhoods are.

Frankly, I think it's a bit absurd that these cities are attempting to levy income tax against workers who do not reside in or work the city during that time period.  They want to change the rules because reality doesn't conform with their budgets.  Well boo-hoo, the pandemic has done that to LOTS of people.  Deal with it.  May they get sued into the ground.

sumpnz

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Re: City income tax and working from home
« Reply #1 on: February 12, 2021, 01:02:20 AM »
Note to self - when I leave my job for something I can do remotely, avoid taking a job with a company based in a city that levies an income tax.  I need to target companies (or divisions) based in FL, TX, or other parts of WA too so there’s no state income tax to deal with either.

MechAg94

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Re: City income tax and working from home
« Reply #2 on: February 12, 2021, 09:24:12 AM »
Note to self - when I leave my job for something I can do remotely, avoid taking a job with a company based in a city that levies an income tax.  I need to target companies (or divisions) based in FL, TX, or other parts of WA too so there’s no state income tax to deal with either.
Just be aware of the property tax situation as well.  Also, some neighborhoods here have mud taxes because the developers pass a bunch of the development cost on to the homeowners as well.
“It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.”  ― Calvin Coolidge

sumpnz

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Re: City income tax and working from home
« Reply #3 on: February 12, 2021, 09:57:58 AM »
My point was that if I am doing the job remotely I’ll be staying put physically.  So property taxes and such will continue to be the ass raping they currently are. Just don’t want to have to fight some city over owing their income tax because Mega Corp has a 200 person division within their borders that I am working for, though never having set foot on the premises as I’m doing the work from my cozy northern Puget Sound home.