The Issue E-commerce, advanced telecommunications, and the new prevalence of remote work have combined to give many married couples more flexibility in their working and living arrangements than in the past. One of these options, rare until recently, is for spouses to assert they live in different states for…
The Issue Can COVID-19 orders make you a resident? Since the COVID-19 emergency struck, tens of thousands of nonresidents have found themselves marooned in California due to coronavirus travel restrictions. The typical situation involves a seasonal visitor forced to remain in a vacation home longer than intended. But it…
The Six-Month Mythos You don’t have to be a tax lawyer to know that the way to avoid becoming a resident of California is to spend less than six months in the state during any calendar year. Right? Well, not exactly. The “six-month presumption,” as it’s called, which is mentioned…
The Cases Two recent court decisions have reemphasized how difficult it can be for a nonresident with a California spouse to avoid California income tax. Difficult, but not impossible. Why The Cases Are Important The opinions were issued by California’s Office of Tax Appeals, the state’s new administrative tribunal…
Where is Bitcoin? This may sound like a question on a Philosophy 101 midterm exam. But in fact, it’s a real-world tax issue, with potential huge tax consequences for nonresident traders, investors, and users of cryptocurrency, at least to the extent they have financial connections with California, through an…
The Issue Nobody needs reminding that California is a high income tax state. Most people know there can be tax benefits from changing residency or maintaining nonresidency status where California is involved. With a top bracket rate of 13.3%, California residency at the time of a large capital gains…
The Remote Economy: A Two-Way Street The internet economy, ecommerce and constant connectivity has allowed increasing numbers of nonresidents to provide remote services to California businesses without setting foot here. As long as those nonresidents meticulously follow the rules, they can work remotely free from California income taxes. Or…
A recent study comparing the states by income tax, sales tax, property tax, average overall tax burden and average effective income tax rates, including dollar for dollar and by percentage, produced expected results about California’s high tax burden, but also some surprising insights. It wasn’t unexpected that California failed to…
Is Bigfoot a California Resident? Manes Law discussed its top five internet myths about California tax residency rules in a previous article. Here are five more. Again, they’re in no particular order, but the commentary should provide some indication about how important they are and why. Myth #1: Leave…
The Issue While not quite as prevalent as Bigfoot videos, myths about California’s residency tax rules abound on the internet. Of course, believing in Bigfoot won’t increase your chances of a residency audit, or cost you tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars if the audit goes against…