I teach a 90 minute class at RV rallies on choosing a home base for fulltimers, and one thing I stress is that you have to cut ALL ties to your former state and establish new ones in your new state.
This is important because more and more states are clamping down on residents who cheat the system by setting up LLCs or an account with a mail forwarding service in a state with low sales tax and registration fees but still live and sometimes even work in their home states. Some don’t even change their drivers license. States like Colorado and California, among others, are levying heavy fines and penalties for people they catch. And unfortunately, some actual fulltimers with good intentions find themselves caught in the middle.
Looking at it from the state’s point of view, they lose money. So if there is a way to show a person has one foot in one state and another in their old state, they have a chance to go after them and collect something, and they will.
I see this a lot. Somebody goes fultime but spends every summer parked at their kid’s house in their old state, keeps their former doctor, stays active in their old church, etc. Or they have most of their mail sent to their kid’s house to avoid paying for a mail service. This can bite you on the butt if your former state comes calling, because as my old man used to say, you can’t be a little bit pregnant.
The onus is on you to prove beyond any doubt that you have moved! Not just by registering a vehicle and getting a drivers license in a different state. Register to vote, have all of your mail sent there, get a library card, find a doctor there, join the local VFW or Elks. These all establish that you are not a resident of your former state. Sure, you may never check out a book or attend a meeting, but you have still demonstrated intent that will help you if the taxman from your former home state comes calling.
Here is an update on our switch to an all digital format for the Gypsy Journal. Since we announced that we will be phasing out the printed edition and sent out a link to a sample of our digital edition, a lot of subscribers are already making the switch, and the feedback we have been getting is very positive. And, as several people have pointed out, for anyone who just can’t handle not having a physical copy to read, they can always print it out on their computer. I think it’s going to be a relatively painless transition.
Congratulations Jerry Walter, winner of an audiobook of the fantasy epic Fomorian Earth: Star Borne: 1 by Sharon Delarose and Lars Bergen. We had 47 entries this time around. Stay tuned, a new contest starts soon.
Thought For The Day – If I agreed with you, we’d both be wrong.
Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
The logistics back in ’98 were much tougher. ( no internet, wifi, etc) . The California DMV was more than happy to put our SKP address in Livingston on our drivers license and vehicle registration. Who knew ? Of course who would do that? But we still had a cabin in the mountains. When we finally sold it and moved to Utah than we changed our residency. There was , no way, as long as we had that cabin that California was going to let us out of income and property tax.
When referring to the ‘taxman’ are you referring to the state income taxman?
State income tax and taxes on RVs and cars registered in another state
Might be an idea to back up abit and start at examining the state you are/were living in prior to going full time. We were in TN, where we sold our home. We have residency, laid the sales tax on the bus, have the necessary stuff. Our question wasn’t what OTHER state do we pick, our question was so we need to pick another state.