Change your domicile to a no-income-tax state and make it survive an audit

  1. Map your departure state’s residency law
    1 hour 30 min

    This step produces a one-page summary of how your departure state defines residency — the statutory day threshold and the domicile factors it weighs — quoted from the state revenue agency’s own publication. The trap: every state runs two independent tests, and you can win the domicile one and still fail the day count.

    1. Open your departure state revenue agency’s residency guide: California FTB Publication 1031, New York’s Residency Requirements and Audit Guidelines, New Jersey’s GIT-3, or Illinois’ rules in 86 Ill. Admin. Code 100.
    2. Extract the statutory test: most states make you a statutory resident at 183 days in the state; New York uses 184 with a permanent place of abode; Illinois uses 330 days for non-domiciliaries with a permanent abode; California presumes nonresidency after 546 days outside the state in three years.
    3. Copy the state’s published domicile factors — home, family, license, voting, business, bank addresses, and the rest.
    4. Note how the state counts days: New York counts any part of a day as a full day.
    5. Check audit posture: California, New York, and New Jersey audit residency aggressively.
    6. Write the one-page summary with the publication cited on it, and save it as residency-summary.