What is a California Residency Audit?
Recently, I’ve gotten a lot of phone calls from people wanting to leave California. They don’t want to deal with the taxes or the regulation. And people call and want to know about residency audits. The State of California has three classifications for an individual: you’re a resident, you’re a non-resident, or you’re a partial-year resident. Most of the time individuals move to another state, it’s really important that you actually move to the other state. If you’re going to move to Florida, you move your family, your house, your driver’s license, you register your car, and you are actually moving and intending to reside in the state of Florida. California has you in their system. If you continue to have rental income, if you continue to have 1099, or bank statements or information with California addresses on it, the state of California is going to assume that you are still living in the state of California. So it’s really important to understand, if you want to avoid a residency audit, that you are actually moved intend to reside in another state and actually reach out to resources in that state and begin living your life in that state.
