driver's licence tricks

[Ms.Behavin]

well as I live on a sailboat (I'm weird I know), I've used a UPS store mailbox as my legal address for years without a problem.   

Beni

[tekla]

The tax deal most likely would not work for you if you only have one employer.  The people I know still have to pay taxes on the money they make in California, but for the jobs that take them out of state, they get a pass on that income. 

So this year it would not have mattered for me as all of 24 different employers (you think your taxes suck?) were located in California.  But if I got a good movie gig, with a lot of out of state, out of country shooting, I'd think about it.

[Lisbeth]

The tax deal most likely would not work for you if you only have one employer.  The people I know still have to pay taxes on the money they make in California, but for the jobs that take them out of state, they get a pass on that income. 

The state tax codes get more complicated than that. If you are going to claim residence in state Y, you can expect state Y to come ask you for a tax return. Back when I moved from Iowa to Minnesota I thought I would only pay Iowa tax on my Iowa job, but the rule was to add the incomes from the two jobs together and prorate it by the amount of time I lived in each state. Ish.

[tekla]

Nevada does not have a state income tax, which is why people do it.

[lilith]

The key to remember is your "legal" address. Everything hinges off of that since it's used and expected to be correct for all your documents with the local, state and federal government. This doesn't mean you can't have a difference between address, whether intra- or inter-state, you just have to have a legitmate reason. If you have more than one address, one will still have to be your legal one, and many states require it to be your primary residence, meaning where you spend a majority of your time in a given year and pay taxes.

Well, that is sort of how i have it already. I moved at the beginning of last year to another county and much of my documentation (bank info, Selective Service, DL, voter registration, vehicle registration) hasn't been updated, or wasn't until very recently. I guess that is somewhat different though, since it's still within the same state.

I didn't consider taxes. As far as the IRS is concerned, though, your address is whatever you put on your W-4/W-2/whatev, isn't it? Like if i don't change anything on there they would never know the difference unless they audited me for some reason. ?

It's likely i might end up moving to State Y eventually anyway, so i suppose unless i randomly get fired from my job in State X that would make things significantly easier. Whether i try it the way i've described will probably just depend on the time frame.

[Lisbeth]

Whether i try it the way i've described will probably just depend on the time frame.

My sense is that doing it any way other than by the book would open a very large can of worms.