SNOWBIRDS & STATE MOVERS

Don't accidentally become a resident of the state you left

If you spend part of the year in a high-tax state and part in a low-tax one, the high-tax state can still tax your entire income as a resident, even if you are domiciled elsewhere. The line between "visitor" and "resident" is usually a day count, and the burden of proving your days is on you.

Two ways a state can call you a resident

Almost every income-tax state can tax you as a resident under either of two independent tests:

• Domicile: your one true permanent home, the place you intend to return to. It is about intent and persists until you affirmatively establish a new one.
• Statutory residency: a mechanical test. Even if you are domiciled in State A, State B can tax you as a full-year resident if you (1) maintain a permanent place of abode there and (2) spend more than 183 days there in the year.

Both prongs must be met, and both states can end up taxing you the same year, subject to credits. Statutory residency is the trap that catches people who "moved" but kept a home and kept spending time in the old state.

"183 days" usually means 184

The rule is popularly called the 183-day rule, but most statutes trigger at more than 183 days, meaning 184 or more. Spending exactly 183 days generally keeps you a nonresident. When you are managing a hard cap, plan around 183 as the last safe day, not the first unsafe one.

New York, and why "any part of a day" matters

New York runs the most aggressive residency audits in the country, and its counting rule is unforgiving: any part of a day spent in New York counts as a full day. You do not need to sleep there. Arrive at 11 p.m. and leave at 1 a.m. the next day, and that is two New York days from two hours of presence. A narrow exception exists for days merely spent in transit. This is exactly the kind of edge that a contemporaneous, timestamped record settles and memory does not.

The states with no day test

Nine states levy no broad-based income tax: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming. There is no residency day test to become taxable in them. For a mover, the day-counting job is the mirror image: proving you stayed under the old state's threshold while you establish domicile in the new one. (Note: Washington taxes some long-term capital gains, and a few states like California use a facts-and-circumstances test with no bright-line day count at all.)

How SpyglassBeacon helps

Beacon keeps an automatic, timestamped day count for every state you set foot in, warns you as you approach a threshold, and exports a day-by-day report in the format an auditor expects, using the same "any part of a day" standard the audits turn on. It is the contemporaneous record that turns "I think I was under 183" into evidence.

Related: Canadian snowbirds · Remote workers · Substantial Presence Test calculator