WV tax help (with a possible assist from VA folks) needed

[Gary2]

But look on the bright side. If done as we seem to agree is the correct way, i.e., a part-year residence return for both states, then the amount earned in WV after the move won't be taxed by VA at all.

[David1980]

Where I am obviously getting lost here is how (for commuters) the "foreign" state (WV or VA) under certain circumstances apparently just ignores the tax on any wage income earned within its borders. Must be some serious politicking going on??

Well, you figure that the foreign state and the resident state who have this reciprocal agreement must have fairly equal amounts of workers crossing the border to work in the other state. So WV gives up tax on taxpayer A, but gets to tax all the income of taxpayer B who actually works in VA. More or less evens out. (If there was much of a difference one way or the other, the reciprocal agreement wouldn't make sense and it probably wouldn't exist, for those states.)