State income taxes

[Kevin D Pem]

Thank you guys, I understand there are laws and real world. However, I would like to find out what are my lawful options. Living in one state and paying taxes to another doesn't seem quite legal. Especially when your domicile state has no income tax. What if you finally get audited and they find out where you actually lived full year? Wouldn't that be a bigger problem?
And I'm not worried about the audit if I've done everything right.

My question is. What state is your company in. If you travel for your company and keep returning home, do you file everywhere you did a job?

 

[docj]

I'm on the same page with the author - I'd have to file one tax return to my domicile state and one to each state where I lived and worked during the year as a non-resident. And I should be careful and find out upfront how each state determines the residency so that other states don't count me as a resident.

With all due respect, having been a full-timer for >10 years I think you are totally wrong with respect to your understanding of the residency rules. You are required to pay tax to a State if you earn income in that State. Workcamping is an excellent example of work that is done in a State which becomes taxable as income in that State. But the work you are doing in that State cannot be extracted from being in that State; in other words you are working at an RV park in a particular State and you had to be there in order to do that work.

However, if you have a full-time remote job that pays you irrespective of where you happen to be physically then you don't pay taxes to a State just because you happen to be there when your paycheck comes in.

To make this easy to understand let's use an absurdly simple example. Forget all about full-timing. Let's assume you are on an extended vacation traveling around the US. You are a salaried employee and your weekly paychecks continue to be deposited as you travel. You continue to read your email and participate in staff meetings while on vacation. No one would even consider having to pay tax to the States you happen to be in when your paychecks were deposited.

In reality the situation for a full-timer is no different; you're simply on an extended journey around the US. As long as your income doesn't depend on being in a particular State then you aren't "seeking employment in that State" then they don't have to file taxes for that State.

FWIW in the MD/DC/VA metro area hundreds of thousands of people work at jobs in one of the three jurisdictions and live in another. Yet all of them file taxes for only the jurisdiction they are residents of.

 

[lemondrop9344]

I'm inclined to agree with Joel. Just to be sure, I would verify your intentions with a competent tax professional to ease your mind.
As I understand your situation, you will be full timing. That implies you will not have a 'sticks & bricks' residence in which you live. You might find that where you pay you state income taxes might not be your most pressing issue.
Vehicle insurance, vehicle registration, personal property insurance (in RV or storage), voter registration, health insurance/health care & a multitude of other issues associated with a domicile, a mailing address and a physical address.
None of these are insurmountable issues, just time consuming.
Then there is the issue of reliable internet connectivity to contend with. I believe most on this forum would advise against depending on RV park provided WiFi as your primary source.