Perpetual traveler needs domicile planning advice in USA

[janejdh]

My husband and I currently live in Georgia and will be retiring in a year. We plan to travel 9 months of the year outside the USA, to spend 2 months with family in USA, and 1 month somewhere else). We expect to put our stuff in storage in the USA and don't plan to spend time in a "home base" in the USA or anyplace else in the world for that matter. We don't want to be considered residents of Georgia for tax purposes, so I think we probably need to establish residency/domicile somewhere in the USA with low taxes. We are thinking of making Nevada or Florida our domicile for state income tax purposes. I'm not sure if this is possible however, since don't expect to actually spend much time there.

Does anyone have any comments, suggestions, words of advice, things we should think about, etc. regarding this approach?

 

[brewer12345]

If you don't get sufficient response here, do some digging on the sites that cater to full time RVers. There are apparently established ways to do this, so you might as well find out what they are and follow them.

 

[Sarah in SC]

Jane, you might want to check out Akaisha's website for info on their home base out west. The Kaderli's would be a good resource for you and their book is great!
Retire Early Lifestyle
IIRC, their book had some mention of how they set up their tax domicile. Best wishes for the PT lifestyle!

 

[Maurice]

Jane - sounds great!

I was living in a high income tax state prior to an expat assignment. I found I needed to actively establish residence in another state for NY to no longer consider me a resident - but (in my case anyway) no one really checked to see how much time I spent there. I ended up finding two other guys in the same situation and renting a small apartment in Florida which we spent only a handful of days in over the space of three years.

In our case it turned out to be cheaper than state taxes on our income, and it was somewhat convenient to have a place to crash in the US when we wanted to.

Your situation is different, of course. I believe the real challenge is not maintaining FL (or whatever income-tax free state) residence, but convincing GA you are no longer a resident of that state. That might be accomplished just by 'moving' to FL temporarily after you've sold your GA residence.

If it were me, I'd sell the GA place, move my goods into storage in northern FL (its probably real cheap there away form the water at least), then rent an apartment for a few months (with or without actually living there). After that it would seem to me one could leave the country as a FL resident. As you probably know there are places in the sticks in northern FL you could rent a place for a song.




Having said all that, please take the others advice and see what the other perpetual travelers have done.

 

[janejdh]

Thanks to all the good advice - If anyone else has any other suggestions/comments, please let me know.

Meanwhile, for the benefit of others who may read this post, I have been doing some research on the internet and these websites provide some insight and things to think about:

Tax issues for full time RVers - see the section on Choosing a State - Your Domicile; Maurice you are correct - it is important to prove you are no longer domiciled in your prior state. Each state has different laws for domicile.

http://rushforth.net/pdf/domicile.pdf - Nevada domicile considerations

 

[MichaelB]

Hi Jane

This has been covered over at RADDR's site in some detail as well
Raddr's Early Retirement and Financial Strategy Board :: View Forum - FI/RE board
The threads on state residency and mexico FIRE research should help, and there are others as well - lots of interest there as well as some folks doing exactly what you have in mind. Lots of other interesting discussions - mail forwarding, managing financial accounts from overseas, etc.

Few states are specific regarding residency. The challenge is severing Georgia residency so there is no future tax claim. I would think move to Florida, rent an apartment, re-domicile your financial accounts, register to vote, get your driver's license, and you've pretty well done it. Keep the apartment through the cycle of financial reporting and tax returns - mostly Oct thru April, and you have established Florida and hence severed Georiga residency. Then you only need a mailing address in Fl. If I understand you correctly you don't need a specific state, just sever tax ties with Georgia.

Of course, you won't own any property in Georgia or have any financial ties - that could complicate your plans.

Michael