Magazine

In 2007, Senators Christopher Dodd and Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut sponsored the Telecommuter Tax Fairness Act, an effort to prevent states from double-taxing nonresident telecommuters. Surprisingly, in an economy where energy conservation is uttered more and more in the same breath as financial sustainability, the bill was buried by federal procedures.

The State of New York taxes its telecommuters, especially nonresident telecommuters, harshly — in some cases, twice as much as the average employee. New York abides by a tax code called “the convenience rule”: if an employee chooses to work outside New York for his or her own convenience, the employee is subject to income tax on their entire income. This means that some telecommuters who work in other states are paying New York taxes on income from work done in those other states. While it should be noted that these are employees of a New York–based company, and an exception is made for those employees who never visit New York during the tax year, some see the current tax laws as outdated and unfair.