Ohio cities taxes

[Kram BergGold]

My client is a non resident of Ohio. He is a student and earned just over $3,326 in Ohio.
His only other income is $50 in dividends.
He had taxes withheld for the City of Oberlin, $63, and SC 4712, $67. If he files some returns for these can he get anything back?

[AJsTax]

Ohio City taxes

are withheld and paid to the city that you work in first. There is no refund of those taxes.If they were not a resident of the city there is no return to file. The dividend income is not taxable to a city, but is taxable to most school districts. Oberlin is a Ohio taxable income district, not an earned income taxing district, so the dividends are taxable also. If the client was a resident of the district during that time the income is all taxable to the district. Do a SD100 form along with the Ohio IT-1040 to determine the amount of additional tax they owe. The SD100 can not be e-filed.
Now the question comes up, are they considered a resident of that city while attending school there? Most likely , yes. Only that city and that school district can answer that question. All are different in how they determine those requirements.
In short, no refund on the city, most likely owe another 1.15% on the dividends to the school unless you can prove that they were never a resident of that district. Part year resident gets part credit. The amount earned while living there is 100% taxable to the school.
I just remembered, Ohio did pass a new rule that if you sleep more than 180 nights in Ohio you are considered a resident for tax purposes. This was done because of all the snow birds we have that spend part of the year in Florida or Arizona and try to get out of Ohio taxes. so if you attended 9 months of school and went home every weekend, you would probably still hit the 180 days.
What would I suggest after all that? Forget about getting any back from the city, you can't and just let the school district have what was withheld and not stir that pot with a tax return. May not be the best to the letter of the law, (which I believe in following), but the amounts of money are not material to anyone.