jimmyod

Hi all,

I moved to the US end of Nov 2021 to get married the following month, I got my EAD/SSN and landed a job, all good news so far. Now I just need to get my head around the pay and taxes for the onboarding process.

"Federal W-4 Please use this form if you are a citizen/resident of the United States"
Q1: I am fairly certain I qualify for the above instead of "Federal W-4 (Non-Resident Alien)" under substantial presence test as I've been in the country continuously since 11/26/21 through to today.

Q2: We already filed our taxes in April as Married filing jointly, and as my wife has the higher paying job and we have no dependents I believe I should just be inputting $0.00 for Steps 3 and 4?

Arizona Tax Form A-4
Q3: So very weird one for me as I live in NJ and the job is fully remote, however the onboarding states "Since you work in Arizona, you are required to provide tax information for Arizona." I have the option to:

• "Withhold from gross taxable wages at the percentage selected below." at multiple percentages (0.8%, 1.3%, 1.8%, 2.7%, 3.6%, 4.2%, 5.1%
• "I elect Arizona withholding percentage of zero, and I certify that I expect to have no Arizona tax."

I feel like I am going to have to put one of the percentages to be withheld (0.8%?), even though work does not plan on me going to AZ at all. Or can I elect not to without worry? (There is always worry)

New Jersey Tax Form NJ-W4
Q4: Filing status again to be Married Joint:

• "Total number of allowances you are claiming:" From instructions I believe this should only be "2" as again no dependents.
• "Additional Withholdings" $0.00?

Thanks for any and all help with this!

Pulaski

1. Yes, you're now a PR, a "resident".
2. Yes, $0 is correct
3. If you have no connection to Arizona and no liklihood of ever working in Arizona then put $0, otherwise you're probably going to have to complete an Arizona tax return to get your withheld tax refunded. And if for some bizarre reason you do end up with an Arizona tax liability you'll just have to pay it after the year end - the penalties for not withholding and paying after the year end are usually miniscule. Disclosure: I have no experience of AZ taxes. Just out of curiosity, is your employer based in AZ? ..... And is your employer able to withhold NJ taxes? Because if not, you should look into the requirements to pay on-going taxes in NJ, probably quarterly.
4. With married joint, it's usually the head of household that claims those, so I would say you should be putting 0, otherwise you and your wife will be claiming twice.

Additional withholdings should probably be zero, though many Americans seem to like to use the IRS as a piggy bank and deliberately over-withhold so they can look forward to a refund, of their own money, which they have been lending at 0% interest to the federal government! That said, here's a point forward for next year - if you owe any tax at the year end for 2022, or are very close to a balanced return (very low refund, or a small bill), you might consider withholding a little extra next year, just to make sure you don't get a tax bill. IME the IRS only get excited if you owe over $1,000 at the year end, and will send you quarterly payment coupons for the following year .... which I always ignore and just bump up my withholding.

BTW Hi Jimmy, welcome to BE!

jimmyod

Thanks so much for the welcome, answers, and education! Little more info on the company location:

3. Their HQ is listed in OH, with additional locations in PA, NY, CA, MA, and the Customer Solutions Center (which I will be working under) is located in AZ. The Onboarding is done through the company portal, and it does state at the top on the Arizona Tax Form A-4 page "Since you work in Arizona, you are required to provide tax information for Arizona."

I have a call with my new manager next week and I'm going to pick his brain on it as he's based in NY so can hopefully shed some additional light.

I had asked this question else where and one answer is that they think I should select the option for the company not to withhold AZ tax as I'd have to file a non-resident return which may raise more questions than not having it taken out in the first place.

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We're currently waiting on our tax refund due to change of status, which has been a pain as at the same time I filed for an ITIN, then received my SSN after the fact, and it's been weeks of back and forth trying to fix that issue. I have a calendar reminder for 09/28 to call them because they told me to wait 9 weeks before they'll acknowledge the letter and evidence of the SSN they told me to send.

lansbury

Since when did starting a new job get the stupid expression onboarding.

Expatrian

Congrats on your move to the US. One or two general concepts incase you aren’t aware to supplement Pulaski’s advice:

The amount of tax you actually pay for the tax year won’t change regardless if you over or under pay through tax withholding throughout the year. It’s just a matter withholding a close to the correct amount as possible for the tax year. However, at the federal level, you want to pay at least 90% of what you owe by year’s end to avoid a possible underpayment penalty. Many States also have similar requirements. As Pulaski said, many Americans tend to over withhold because they want a big refund. However, for your first tax year, I’d err towards doing that to reduce the risk of underpayment penalties, and then fine tune your withholdings for later tax years.

I’ve never found the W4 withholding worksheet to be much use. I’ve found estimating our joint gross income for the year, subtracting the standard deduction (or estimated itemized deduction, if you will use that), and then taking the approx. taxable income and calculating the tax owed on that using the tax brackets, works better for me. Once you’ve done your 2022 taxes and seen how accurate your withholding was, assuming your incomes are fairly stable, using the prior year’s tax withholding accuracy as a reference point can be useful.

Ref. the State taxes, you’ll want to visit both State’s tax websites and carefully review the laws for each State. One thing you’ll want to look for in particular is whether AZ taxes income generated within the State, even though you’e not a tax resident there.

On an unrelated side note, if you’re under 26 be sure to register with the Selective Service System and keep your address updated with them as well as USCIS. HTH!

Expatrian

Since the 1970’s.

lansbury

FFS, woke stupidity started earlier then I thought.

Former Lancastrian

Well it is an American term and probably picked it as Waterboarding was already taken.

lansbury

I always thought it was orientation.

Pulaski

Orientation is entirely different - that is the company explaining things to you - the layout of the office, the healthcare benefits, the way to access your time/ pay records. there may be some form filling required during orientation, and those forms are used for .... "Onboarding", which is getting your name, SSN and address onto the payroll, getting you a computer, and any other equipment you need to do your job, getting you an office/ factory access badge, with the permissions to access locations/ buildings/ rooms for you to do your job, etc.

FWIW Companies also onboard clients - put their name and address in the client database, record what services the client will be needing, assign a client manager, set up a billing account, etc.

lansbury

Like I said orientation. Onboarding is just bollocks some arse with a degree thought up to sound superior.

Emperor and new clothes comes to mind

Derrygal

It's a fairly new term - American, I believe. I work for a large Fortune 500 company here in Ohio and that is the term HR uses. I think it's weird but seems that is the "in word"!

Pulaski

If I lived anywhere near Portland, OR this wouldn't be on my list of top one thousand things to get angry about, probably not even on my top ten thousand list!

lansbury

I'm glad you said that as it isn't something I've heard prior to about 6 months or so ago. When Wikipedia said the 1970s I had no recollection of hearing it used then.

Only thing I'm onboarding is a BA Dreamliner in 17 days time.

OldJuddian

Your manager and company are likely to say that they are not allowed to comment on any tax related issues. It's frustrating as it is so different to the UK system, but the company needs to avoid being seen to giving tax advice - even to extent of not explaining what the W4 means.