If you' re asked for your present salary, I think you should honestly provide it but, at the same time, I think you should also specify your anticipated salary range.  If I were you, either on the application or in your cover letter, I' d write something like, "My present annual salary is $X, but my anticipated salary range is negotiable within the $Y to $Z range.  Whatever you do, don' t lie about your present salary!  All a prospective employer has to do is ask YOU to bring in a copy of a recent pay stub or W-2.  Of course you can decline to do that, but the prospective employer can also decline to hire you if you don' t.  There are many valid reasons why a prospective employer asks for most recent salary information.  The most common, in my opinion, is as a screening device.  For instance, if you' re earning $60K per year and the employer' s budgeted range for the job to be filled is $40K to $50K -  there' s probably no point in proceeding with the interview process and all the rest and wasting everybody' s time when it' s reasonably clear that you' re probably not going to take a $10K salary cut and the prospective employer isn' t going to authorize a salary increase of more than $10K to hire you.  Not every employer is trying to lowball every job seeker!  Make sense?