California Residency

Yes, but it is the single biggest risk factor in an FTB audit. Keeping the home furnished, available, and used on visits looks like you never gave up your permanent place of abode. If you keep the house, rent it out on a genuine arm's-length lease, move your spouse and dependents out with you, and make sure your actual annual day count and closest connections (driver's license, voter registration, doctors, banking) point to Nevada, not California.

No. California has no simple day-count threshold that by itself makes you a resident or nonresident. Instead it asks whether your closest connections, meaning family, home, and financial ties, point to California. You can spend fewer than 183 days in California and still be found a resident, or spend more and still be a nonresident if you can prove the presence was temporary or transitory.

There's no fixed safe number. Revenue and Taxation Code §17016 only creates a presumption of residency once you're present more than nine months (roughly 274 days); it doesn't protect you below that. FTB can still find you a resident at far fewer days if your spouse, kids, home, and financial life stayed centered in California.

The most common triggers are a large capital gain or business sale reported shortly after a claimed move date, a part-year or nonresident return that still shows California-source income, a 1099 or K-1 sent to a California address after the move, and continued ownership of a California home combined with California driver's license or voter registration records.

FTB cross-references DMV vehicle and license records, the voter registration file, 1099/K-1 address data, and increasingly credit card geolocation and cell phone records. Homestead declarations filed in a new state get compared against continued California property ownership, and in high-dollar cases FTB has used private investigators and social media.

Ordinary visits are fine, but every hour in California counts as a full day toward FTB's nine-month presumption, and frequent, long, or pattern-like visits (same house, same routine) get weighed as evidence your closest connections never really left. Keep visits documented, reasonably short, and avoid using a California address for mail, banking, or medical care during them.

California still taxes the portion of the option income tied to the vesting period you worked in California, using a ratio of California workdays to total workdays during that period. Moving before exercising doesn't erase this; FTB applies the allocation at exercise regardless of your residency then.

Possibly yes. An entity's state of formation doesn't determine your personal residency. If FTB's closest-connections analysis finds you're still domiciled in California, or that you spent significant time in the state, your worldwide income, including the LLC's pass-through income, can be taxed as a California resident regardless of where the business is legally organized.

Practitioners commonly describe FTB residency audits running well over a year, often into the 18 to 24 month range once document requests, interviews, and appeals to the Office of Tax Appeals are factored in, especially for high-net-worth cases involving a business sale.

Under Revenue and Taxation Code §17016, spending more than nine months (roughly 274 days) of the tax year in California creates a rebuttable presumption that you're a California resident. You can overcome it with evidence the presence was for a temporary or transitory purpose, but the burden of proof is on you, not the FTB.

Yes. Until your California residency actually ends under the facts-and-circumstances test, all pension, 401(k), and IRA distributions are taxed as ordinary income at up to 13.3%. Only Social Security is exempt regardless of residency status.