Thoughts on maintaining two abodes

[luvflyin]

IT's worse than that. A consultant working in another state can be forced to pay income tax to California for any business they do for California clients. Case involving a screenwriter who lives in Arizona and wrote scripts for California-based studios was forced to pay California income tax.

https://edzollarscpa.com/2019/09/03...nia-tax-even-though-all-work-done-in-arizona/

It won’t be taxable in Arizona but Arizona’s tax rate is about half of California’s so it sux for the screen writer. It’s kinda like having rental properties out of state. The ‘source’ of the income is where the property is. Even if you never set foot in that state, that’s the state that gets to tax it. The ‘source’ of the screenwriters income was California. I’m pretty sure this just about universal among the states.

 

[Morgan3820]

You make a good point. Withholding too much just increases the amount that you’ll likely get back, so you haven’t actually gained anything, but rather you’re just breaking even. It’s a mind game that a lot of people don’t understand. “Yippee, look honey, we’re getting back $2500 this year!”

Congratulations, you paid $2500 too much throughout the year.

True. But it beats “Honey, we need to find $2500 to finish out this years taxes”. Been there.

 

[RyanB]

True. But it beats “Honey, we need to find $2500 to finish out this years taxes”. Been there.

For sure. The point being, Uncle Sam gets his money one way or the other. Pay now or pay later.

 

[kep5niner]

Two homes, same state. One's a lake house. The 30 minute flight sure beats the 3.5 hour drive, and we just keep an extra car at the airport by the lake. Sure there's expenses to maintaining both. I've always said it's amazing how hard you have to work to makes things "maintenance free." Duplicate tools between the homes means I just get to contribute to Harbor Freight's bottom line more. Not doing Snap-On / Milwaukee at multiple locations...

But the time on the water makes it all worth it. The kids agree and we're building life-long memories - whether flying, boating, water-skiing, etc.

 

[DesertNomad]

In 2005-2007, I maintained homes in Prague and Dubai (winters in Dubai and summers in Prague) and then Prague/Nevada for after that. We would generally move homes about every 4 months. I work from home and Nevada has no state income tax so that part was fairly easy. It was rather expensive to maintain two sets of pretty much everything.

I still have my home in Prague, but can't travel there at the moment of course. We decided to rent out the place for a while. The residency rules became much stricter after 2015 so I no longer have a long term residence permit in the Czech Republic.