Today, May 14th, the U.S. House of Representatives introduced the Mobile Workforce State Income Tax Simplification Act of 2015. This bill, known as H.R. 2315, is being sponsored by Representative Mike Bishop (R-MI) and Representative Hank Johnson (D-GA). Utah’s own Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) is an original co-sponsor of the bill, along with Lamar Smith (R-TX), Mark Walker (R-NC), Dennis Ross (R-FL), Patrick Murphy (D-FL), David Cicilline (D-RI) and Eric Swalwell (D-CA).
This bill marks important progress towards simplifying income taxes in the U.S. by setting a 30-day safe harbor from personal income tax and withholding obligations for traveling employees and their employers. This means that employees traveling to a different state for fewer than 30 days would not incur any personal income tax liability in that state, and the employer would have no withholding obligation. Employers and employees would simply continue to fulfill tax obligations to the state of residency during the 30-day safe harbor.
Passage of this bill would greatly simplify the income tax process for employees and employers by making sure frequent business travelers don’t have to comply with 50 different state income tax rules applicable to nonresident traveling businesspeople.
Earlier in February of this year, the Senate introduced S. 386 by Senators John Thune (R-SD) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) – the companion bill to HR 2315.
Your Utah Taxpayers Association thanks Representative Chaffetz for his support of this important legislation that will greatly reduce the income tax compliance burden on employee and employers.
Source: Council on State Taxation, www.cost.org