Residency tracking insights for multi-state living.

Illinois to Florida: Severing Business and Property Ties, Not Just an Address

Illinois has no 183-day line to clear, which is why this corridor is decided by ties rather than counts. Here is what the homestead exemption presumption actually does, what Illinois changed in 2025 about selling a business, and what the Illinois house keeps costing after you are a Floridian.

September 8, 2026

Corridor

17 min read

New Jersey to Florida: Correcting the Exit Tax Myth

New Jersey has no exit tax. What it has is a recording gate at the closing table, a residency question nobody sends you a form for, and an inheritance tax that follows the house rather than the person. Here is what the GIT/REP forms actually do, what the New Jersey Tax Court actually held in Samuelsson, and what New Jersey keeps after you are gone.

September 7, 2026

Corridor

California to Arizona: The Short-Drive Problem for a Real Domicile Change

Arizona is close enough to drive back to, and that is the corridor’s whole difficulty. Here is what the Bragg opinion actually held about a California to Arizona move, the nineteen factors it produced, why Arizona’s two residency lines do not protect you from California’s, and the reverse credit that puts the other state tax credit on the return most movers do not expect.

September 6, 2026

Corridor

California to Florida: Why Timing Around a Liquidity Event Is the Biggest Audit Flag

Florida will not tax the gain. Whether California does comes down to one date, and to what you were on that date rather than what you became afterward. Here is how the Franchise Tax Board reads a move that lands next to a sale, which date actually controls for each deal shape, and why the strongest Florida evidence runs on a calendar a closing cannot accelerate.

September 5, 2026

Corridor

California to Nevada: Why a Nevada Move Does Not Shelter California-Source Income

Nevada will never tax you. That is not the same as owing nothing. California taxes nonresidents on California-source income indefinitely, and because Nevada imposes no tax, there is no other-state credit to offset it. Here is what stays Californian after the move, what does not, and what the Court of Appeal changed on May 1, 2026.

September 4, 2026

Corridor

California to Texas: The Closer Connection Test Explained

The test that decides a California to Texas move is not a day count and it is not the federal closer connection exception people find when they search for it. It is the closest-connections analysis California built out of Appeal of Bragg, and it has no threshold you can clear. Here is what the nineteen factors are, how the Franchise Tax Board applies them today, and why winning the residency question is only half the fight.

September 3, 2026

Enforcement

The Homestead Exemption Cross-Check That Catches Two-Home Owners

A homestead exemption is a sworn statement that one specific property is your principal residence, and it is the cheapest document in your life for a state to pull. Here is what Florida, Texas, New York, and California actually check, the clawback each one carries, and why a Nevada homestead declaration is not the same instrument at all.

September 1, 2026

Remote Work

Your Employer’s Payroll State Can Contradict Your Domicile

You moved, you told HR, and the W-2 still says New York. Payroll withholding and domicile are two different determinations made by two different parties, and the convenience of the employer rule means a correct W-2 can still tax every day you worked from your new state. Here is what the rule actually requires, what Zelinsky lost twice, and what to do when the employer will not change the code.

August 31, 2026

Residency Rules

The Empty Apartment Trap: How an Unused Lease Keeps You Taxable

You moved, you stopped living there, and you kept the place. New York asks whether you still have a residential interest in it, and a furnished apartment you never enter can still be one. Minnesota wrote the answer into its statute: an abode counts whether or not it is occupied. California has no abode test at all, which sounds better than it is.

August 30, 2026

Residency Rules

Can I Still Visit My Parents? Day Counting for Real Life

The honest answer depends on which state you left and whether you sleep in your old bedroom. New York counts a Friday-to-Sunday visit as three days and does not exempt the days you spend at a parent’s hospital bedside. New Jersey publishes an actual number, 30 days, for people who left. California publishes no number at all.

August 29, 2026

Residency Audit

"I Thought I Didn’t Owe State Tax." A $21,000 Lesson

The best-performing post in this entire niche is somebody’s confession about a $21,000 state tax bill they did not see coming. The arithmetic behind that number is not mysterious. California can stack three separate 25 percent penalties on a return you never filed, which turns $12,000 of tax into $21,000 before a dollar of interest, and the clock on a return that was never filed never starts.

August 28, 2026

Remote Work

Overemployed Across State Lines: The Tax Problem Nobody Warns You About

Two remote jobs, two employer states, one body. The federal return is the easy part. Six states apply a convenience of the employer rule that sources your wages to the office you never sit in, and holding two jobs means fighting that rule twice, with two separate proofs.

August 27, 2026

Airline Crew

Airline Crew and the Federal Residency Exemption Most Pilots Miss

Federal law does stop most states from taxing a crew member’s flight pay. It does not stop the state you live in, and it does not stop any state from deciding you live there. Here is what 49 U.S.C. 40116 actually says, who it covers, and the two cases that show where crew members lose.

August 26, 2026

Full-Time RVers

Full-Time RVer Domicile: SD vs FL vs TX, Honestly Compared

All three states tax your income at zero, so that is never the tiebreaker. The real differences are the bar to get in, what it costs to bring a rig across the line, which license your coach needs, and which of the three gives you a document your old state has to argue with. Here is the comparison with the statutes and forms behind it.

August 25, 2026

Travel Nurses

Travel Nurse Tax Home: What Survives an Audit

A travel nurse pay package is built on one federal concept: a tax home. If it fails, the housing and meal stipends become wages, and since 2018 there is no deduction to fall back on. Here is the actual test in Revenue Ruling 73-529 and Revenue Ruling 93-86, the agency rules that are not rules, and the separate state residency problem nobody budgets for.

August 23, 2026

Residency Rules

Burden of Proof: Why "They Can’t Prove I Was There" Is Backwards

In a residency audit the state does not have to prove you were there. You have to prove you were not, in New York by clear and convincing evidence, against an assessment the law already presumes is correct. Here is where that rule is written, the narrow situations where the burden runs the other way, and why a man with 169 New York days still lost.

August 22, 2026

Residency Rules

Any Part of a Day: The Rule That Ruins Careful Plans

A lunch meeting counts. A late landing counts. In New York, arriving at 11 p.m. and leaving at 6 a.m. is two days, not one. Here is what the any-part-of-a-day rule actually says, the two narrow exceptions that exist, why Maryland and Minnesota and Utah and Ohio each count differently, and why 20 of 56 jurisdictions have never said what a day is.

August 21, 2026

Evidence

The Travel Journal Method, and Why It Fails Under Audit

Keep a travel journal is the advice everyone gives someone changing states. New York’s own audit manual accepts a diary as proof, and then explains how auditors will test it. Here is what happened in the cases where a journal failed, what saved the ones that worked, and how states figure out you moved long before anyone asks to see your calendar.

August 20, 2026

Evidence

Can Google Location History Prove Your Residency?

Google moved Timeline off its servers and onto your phone, set the default retention to three months, and told the Supreme Court it can no longer answer geofence warrants. That changes what your location history is in a residency audit: not an independent third-party record the state can verify, but your own record, carrying its own confidence scores, that has to be corroborated by something else. Here is what states actually ask for, what Timeline is good for, and where it fails.

August 19, 2026

Day Counting

The Cinderella Rule: How Billionaires Count Midnight

New York does not count hours. It counts calendar days, and presence for any part of one spends the whole day. That is why a hedge fund founder built his entire year 2000 around leaving the city before midnight, and why his $26.7 million case came down to four days out of 366. Here is what the Tax Appeals Tribunal actually held, taken from the decision itself and from the audit manual that now cites it.

August 18, 2026

Residency Audit

What a State Residency Audit Actually Asks For, Month by Month

A residency audit does not arrive as one giant document demand. It arrives as a sequence, and every state runs roughly the same one: a short questionnaire, then a document request, then a rebuilt day count from other people’s records, then a request to extend the statute of limitations, then a position letter and a countdown measured in days. Here is that sequence in New York, California, and Connecticut, taken from the agencies’ own audit manuals.

August 16, 2026

Residency Audit

11 min read

Your Neighbor Can Trigger a Residency Audit. Here’s How That Actually Works

Yes, a neighbor can report you, and the phone numbers are published. New York takes referrals at 518-457-0578, New Jersey runs a 24-hour recorded tip line, California has a web form, and Florida property appraisers let you report a homestead exemption anonymously. Here is what a tip actually does once it arrives, what New York’s own audit guidelines say has to happen next, and why the same neighbor is also the witness who wins these cases.

August 15, 2026

Domicile

10 min read

The Case That Turned on Where a Man Kept His Dog

New York asserted $430,065 against a CEO who moved to Dallas. He kept his Manhattan apartment, kept a boat in the Hamptons, and won anyway, because he moved his elderly rescue dog. Here is what the near and dear factor actually is, the mirror-image case where a taxpayer lost with a Michigan license in his pocket, and why neither case was decided by a day count.

August 14, 2026

Audit Readiness

Establishing Nevada Residency From a Condo-Hotel: The Utility-Bill Paper Trail That Does Not Exist

Condo-hotel units like The Signature at MGM Grand bundle water, sewer, and trash into association dues and leave owners with a single NV Energy electric account. That quietly removes most of the utility evidence a California residency audit expects to see. Here is what to document instead.

August 11, 2026

Burden of Proof

How to Prove You Were in Arizona When You Rent in Both States

The question people ask is how a state could ever prove they spent six months somewhere when they rent in both places. The question runs backwards. Here is who actually carries the burden, what Arizona's nine-month presumption does and does not give you, and what evidence separates a home you occupy from a home you merely hold.

August 13, 2026

Part-Year Residency

My Lifestyle Is More Ambiguous: Residency When You Split the Year

Most residency guidance assumes a clean move. If you split the year between two states, the question is not whether your life is tidy enough to qualify. It is which of two separate tests you are being measured against, and what part-year versus nonresident filing actually looks like in New York, Minnesota, and Illinois.

August 12, 2026

Cost of Audit

What Does It Cost to Defend a Residency Audit?

No state publishes what it costs to fight a residency audit. Working from practitioner fee schedules, published audit statistics, and our own 56-jurisdiction research, here is what the defense bill actually looks like and what drives it.

August 11, 2026

State Rules

Only 32 of 56 US Jurisdictions Use the 183-Day Rule. Here Is What the Other 24 Do

We researched residency rules for all 50 states, Washington DC, and the 5 US territories across 538 cited sources. Only 32 use a 183-day threshold, 7 set a different number, and 17 have no bright-line day count at all. Here is how to read the comparison.

August 10, 2026

Audit Readiness

7 min read

California Residency Audits Reach Your Vet Records. Here Is Why That Matters Beyond Billionaires

Ahead of a November ballot measure on a billionaire wealth tax, the Franchise Tax Board is preparing to test who actually left California before January 1, 2026. The evidence it examines, down to where your pets see a veterinarian, applies to far more than billionaires.

August 10, 2026

Business Sale

Residency Planning Before Selling Your Business

Planning a business sale? Learn how residency timing, move milestones, evidence references, advisor review, and AuditIQ Reconstruction planning can support a clearer residency record.

August 7, 2026

Migration Planning

Keeping Two Homes: How to Change Residency Without Cutting Every Tie

You can own homes in two states and still change your domicile. State guidance treats the retained home as a comparison, not a disqualifier. Here is what California and New York actually examine, and where a second home creates a separate statutory residency problem.

August 5, 2026

Part-Year Residency

Part-Year Residency Guide: How to Organize a Mid-Year Move

Learn how to organize movement, evidence, state rules, planning milestones, and advisor review when residency changes during a tax year.

August 5, 2026

Audit Readiness

New York Residency Audit Guide: Why 184 Days and an Apartment Can Create Exposure

Learn why New York statutory residency can involve both day counts and permanent-place-of-abode facts, including NYC exposure, partial-day counting, and retained residence risk.

August 4, 2026

Moving Strategy

10 min read

The First 90 Days After Moving: 30 Steps to Strengthen Your New State Residency

Moving to a new state? Learn the most important residency steps to take during your first 90 days to strengthen your domicile, reduce audit risk, and build a stronger residency record.

August 3, 2026

Athletes & Entertainers

7 min read

Sam Darnold Won the Super Bowl and Still Lost Money to California

Sam Darnold’s Super Bowl bonus was $178,000. Reporting puts his California tax bill on just 8 duty days above that. Here’s how the "jock tax" works, and why a story like this helped inspire ResidencyIQ.

July 9, 2026

Migration Planning

6 min read

What the Billionaire Exodus to Florida Actually Requires

Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Mark Zuckerberg have all reportedly bought Florida real estate amid a proposed California wealth tax. A mansion purchase and a defensible residency change are not the same thing.

July 9, 2026

Reconstruction

7 min read

Take a Lot of Photos? You May Have Saved Part of Your Residency Timeline

Phone photos may contain timestamp and location metadata that can help support a reconstructed residency timeline when reviewed alongside travel, calendar, statement, and evidence records.

June 28, 2026

Moving Strategy

Moving Over July 4 Weekend? Start Tracking Your Residency Now, Even Mid-Year

If you are moving to a target state during the July 4 holiday period, starting residency tracking mid-year can still help organize movement, evidence, and advisor-ready records.

June 28, 2026

Residency Rules

What Counts as a Day for State Tax Residency? Why the 183-Day Rule Is Not Enough

Learn why the 183-day rule is only part of state tax residency and how days, nights, domicile evidence, and advisor-ready records can affect residency exposure.

June 26, 2026

Audit Readiness