Bellevue Tax Preparation,
Without the Stress
Bellevue is a military town, and military returns follow rules that almost nothing in ordinary tax software handles well. Whether Nebraska can tax your pay at all depends on a state of legal residence most people set years ago and never revisit. A spouse working off base has a residency question of their own. Combat pay, allowances, and the home you sold during a deployment each carry their own treatment. Add the large federal civilian and contractor workforce at Offutt, with its own pension and thrift-plan questions, and Bellevue produces some of the most technical returns in the metro, filed by people told they were simple.
We are a short drive northwest at 12305 Gold St in west Omaha. Many Bellevue residents choose us because the price is published before we start, because your return is prepared by one credentialed professional who is a CFP® professional, CFA® charterholder, and Enrolled Agent rather than a seasonal hire, because you get responses from us quickly even during tax season, and because you get a recorded video explaining your tax return rather than just a folder and a handshake.
Ready to Get Started
Choose the way that works best for you.
Some Situations That Might Apply to You If You’re from Bellevue
Whether Nebraska can tax your military pay at all
This is the first question for anyone stationed at Offutt, and it is the one most often answered wrong by default. Under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, active-duty pay is taxed by your state of legal residence, not by the state you are stationed in. If your legal residence is Texas or Florida or another state with no income tax, and you keep it, Nebraska generally cannot tax your military pay even though you live and work here. Problems come from two directions: servicemembers who accidentally became Nebraska residents and started owing tax they could have avoided, and those who moved here, changed nothing, and now have withholding going to the wrong state. Getting your legal residence right, and keeping the paperwork that proves it, is worth more than most line items on the return.
You retired from the service, or you are a federal civilian at Offutt
Bellevue holds a large population of military retirees, many working a second civilian career, and a large federal civilian and contractor workforce. Both have a split to manage. Nebraska fully exempts military retirement pay, so a retired servicemember owes no state tax on the pension, but a new civilian paycheck is fully taxable, and keeping the two straight on the return is where errors creep in. Federal civilian employees have their own set: a FERS pension, a Thrift Savings Plan with traditional and Roth sides that are taxed very differently, and, for anyone who contributed while deployed, tax-free money inside the TSP that has to be tracked. These are the questions that reward a preparer who also understands the investment side, which is exactly the combination we bring.
Your spouse works off base
A military spouse has a residency question the servicemember does not. Under the Military Spouse Residency Relief Act, as expanded by the Veterans Benefits and Transition Act, a spouse can elect to use the servicemember's state of legal residence for their own income, regardless of where they physically work, and can make that election even if they never lived there. For a spouse earning wages at a job in the Omaha metro, that election can mean their income is sourced to a no-tax state, or lower tax state, rather than to Nebraska. It is one of the largest and most frequently missed opportunities on a military household's return, and it has to be claimed correctly, not assumed.
Prefer to Learn
More First
Take a quick tour of how we work and what makes us different.
Why Choose MTS