Maryland is trying to Hit Me With a $5,600 Tax Bill Years Later While I Was Active Duty Military
A few days ago I received a collection notice from Penn Credit claiming I owed the State of Maryland $5,587.79 for tax year 2020.
Here’s the issue
- I was active duty Navy from 2016-2024
- Pennsylvania was my home of record/legal residence the entire time
- I maintained a PA driver’s license the entire time
- I was stationed in Washington DC in 2020
- I only physically moved into Maryland in late October 2020 because of Active orders
- I had ZERO civilian income in 2020
At first I thought it was a scam because the collections phone number literally got flagged by my phone carrier as “likely scam,” but after digging into it, the account itself appears real.Then I started researching Maryland military tax law and found this directly from the Maryland Comptroller: “You do NOT need to file a Maryland return if you are a legal resident of another state and your income is military income.”That immediately made me start pulling records. Luckily, I still had
my DD214, multiple 2020/2021 LES statements, PA state tax coding on all LES records, proof of PA residency
*no Maryland state tax withholding*
I submitted everything to Maryland Comptroller and now the case is officially under review. The interesting part is the amount itself (~$5.6k) almost looks like Maryland may have attempted to tax my entire year of military income as though I was a normal Maryland resident.
If anyone here has dealt with Maryland residency disputes while active-duty military, I’d be interested to hear how it played out, how long it took to resolve or if they even dropped the issue.