New York Residency

New York's audit program is built for exactly this pattern. Auditors reconstruct day counts from cell phone location data, EZ-Pass toll records, credit and debit card statements, and even medical or veterinary appointments, then compare that reconstruction against your own return. Because any part of a calendar day in New York counts as a full day under 20 NYCRR 105.20, a single afternoon meeting can move the count. The burden of proof is on you, not the state, so the absence of your own contemporaneous records is itself a disadvantage in an audit.

It can, but it isn't automatic. Under Matter of Gaied, the Court of Appeals held that merely owning or holding the keys to a New York dwelling isn't enough to make it a permanent place of abode; there has to be evidence you actually use it as a residence. An apartment sitting genuinely empty and unused cuts against a permanent-place-of-abode finding. An apartment you or your family still stay in, even occasionally, is a much harder sell as abandoned.

Visiting itself isn't the problem; day counting is. Every day you spend any part of in New York, including a day trip to see your parents, counts toward the 183-day statutory residency threshold if you also maintain a New York abode for substantially all the year. Occasional visits without a New York home available to you are lower risk. The combination of frequent visits and a place to stay, like a childhood bedroom you still use, is what auditors look for.

Withholding address alone doesn't establish tax residency, but it does create a paper trail that contradicts your claimed move and can trigger a notice. More importantly, if you continue working remotely for a New York-based employer, New York's convenience of the employer rule can independently tax those wages as New York-source income unless the remote arrangement is a bona fide necessity of the employer, not just your own preference. Fixing the payroll address doesn't fix the convenience rule exposure; those are two separate problems.

If you're a nonresident who works from home for a New York-based employer, New York treats your home-office days as New York workdays, and taxes that income, unless you can show the remote work was a necessity for the employer rather than your own convenience. The Tax Appeals Tribunal reaffirmed this again in Matter of Zelinsky in 2025. The practical effect is that many remote employees of New York companies owe New York tax on nearly all of their income even though they never set foot in the state, which can also create double taxation with their home state.

Yes. In Matter of Blatt, a CEO who relocated from New York City to Dallas for a new job won his residency case largely because he finally moved his elderly rescue dog to Texas, which the administrative law judge treated as the clearest evidence of genuine intent to relocate. It outweighed the Manhattan apartment he still owned and the boat he kept in the Hamptons, and it landed months before he got a Texas driver's license or registered to vote there. It's a real illustration of how New York's domicile test looks past paperwork to small, honest signals of where someone actually built their life.

Spending exactly 183 days keeps you under the statutory residency threshold, since the test requires more than 183 days, not 183 or more. But you still need to independently avoid domicile status, and if you maintain a New York abode for substantially all the year, you're right at the edge of a test where auditors will scrutinize every day count with cell records and toll data. Treat 183 as the ceiling to stay well under, not a target to hit exactly.

Yes. New York sources compensation, including stock options, bonuses, and deferred compensation, to the period and location where the underlying services were performed, not to when the income is actually paid out. If you earned an option grant while working in a New York office, New York can tax the New York-allocable portion when it eventually vests or is exercised, even years after you've become a nonresident, because the right was earned during your New York employment.

There is no published statewide figure, and reputable firms decline to give one because cases vary so much in complexity and duration. What is consistent across practitioner guidance from firms like Hodgson Russ is that a full nonresident audit is document-intensive and commonly runs 12 to 24 months, which by itself points to professional fees in the tens of thousands of dollars for a contested case rather than a simple flat cost.

Yes. Use Form IT-203, the Nonresident and Part-Year Resident Income Tax Return, which is also the correct form for a part-year exit. You calculate tax as if you were a full-year resident, then apportion it based on the share of income earned during your resident period plus any New York-source income earned after you became a nonresident. Skipping this filing in your move year is one of the more common triggers for a later inquiry.

It can, and it's a well-known cross-check. STAR requires the property to be your primary, owner-occupied residence, so continuing to receive it while filing a nonresident New York return and claiming Florida domicile is a direct contradiction that auditors look for specifically. If you've genuinely moved, deregistering from STAR is one of the concrete administrative steps that supports your new domicile claim rather than undermining it.

New York applies the same statutory residency test to a travel nurse as anyone else, so a nurse who is not domiciled in New York but keeps a New York apartment for substantially all the year and works more than 183 New York days can become a statutory resident taxed on worldwide income. The more common problem runs the other way: auditors, both federal and state, have challenged nurses who claim a Florida or Texas tax home on paper but never actually maintain or visit that home, which can invalidate the tax-home claim entirely and expose all their travel stipends to tax.