Resident of Minnesota -Winters in Arizona?

[zeros]

Have client who goes southwest to Arizona in the winter months and could easily qualify to be a resident of Arizona with the cheaper state taxes. Other than staying over six months there and perhaps changing his driver's license residency, what other things would make him an official resident of Arizona?

[Nashville]

Register to Vote

Hard to argue against voter registration as an intent to stay.

However, it is possible that he may not be able to escape "Resident" status for either state!!

Each state defines the characteristics of a resident for state tax purposes under their own laws. For example, Arizona may define a resident as one who lives in Arizona for 90 days, and Minnesota may do the same. If so, then living six months in both places makes him a resident of both states for tax purposes!! Common sense may tell us residency must be mutually exclusive, but I can promise no state cares what other states do. They've both got an approach that says "I want mine" regardless of the claims of any other party.

In such a situation, I don't know how a taxpayer files to take "Credit for Taxes paid to other states."

Fortunately, there are good members who frequent this board from both Minnesota and Arizona, and maybe they can shed some more light on this...

[Kram BergGold]

Check the board

Check tthis board, you may find some old posts on MN residency.

[zeros]

Minnesota is Over 6 Months

Check tthis board, you may find some old posts on MN residency.

Minnesota is over 6 months but not certain of Arizona.

[Lion]

To stop being a MN resident, your client needs to DO something, have an event. He can't just wake up one morning and think that he'll be a resident where the taxes are lower but continue to split his time between the two states, do nothing different. Getting a job out of MN or moving out of state to be closer to family or to medical care. Associating with the new state, church, doctors, clubs, activities, courses, etc. Selling his MN house. Read the MN info, probably on their web site as well as instructions to their tax returns.

[Gary2]

States make it easy to establish domicile, difficult to give up. You'll often read that "a person can have one and only one domicile at any given time", which may be true but which doesn't address the situation that two different states may disagree as to where that domicile is.

Take a look at http://bbatrustsandestates.blogspot....achusetts.html , which discusses two different MA cases. Note that changing voter registration is considered "merely ministerial", and may not be enough.

[oceanlovin'ea]

I think if a person chooses to be a resident of a new state (for example, after retirement), then he must have his driver's license registered in that state. His automobile tags would be from that state. Voter registration is another proof of residency. A person can have only 1 permanent residence.
I don't know about length of time in the each state. I live in Florida and we don't have a state tax so a lot of retired people choose Florida as their state of residence even though they go north for the hot months.

Linda, EA