States require you to register car/trailer in that state if there more than 30 days

[Darwin Maring]

Go to Good Sam club and view their mail forwarding service where they explain how to set up a physical address in Florida, no state income tax, and how to get your mail sent to you.

[Glenn Baglo]

Just curious what roads you expect to drive on when everybody is avoiding paying taxes? What state parks are you going to camp at?

[Uplander]

Smart people seek professional advise and reduce their tax burden.

Glenn seems to like donating his money to government agencies.
He may not know that drivers in the USA donate large volumes of their money for road construction every time they fill their gas tanks...taxes and more taxes that are supposed to be spent on roads...where does that money go??? In most cases it is lost in the state's "general fund" and never seen again!!!

[Gennaver]

Originally Posted by Uplander

Gennaver,
How do you file your income tax? You must have an address and that would create a tax liability for state income tax....when you file your federal return you must supply an address for any refund you may be entitled to. Auto and travel trailer registration and insurance is also an issue....you must pick a state.

Hi,
I have a PO Box near where I am working, (as a travel nurse.) I change the PO Box when I move. When I was working in Texas I made that my home of Record until I was working in Alaska for three years. When I worked next in Tennessee I didn't change my license until I was driving through to California, (where I work now.) When I drove through Arizona I used my dad's address as a home of record and changed my driver's license. Dad moved to AZ in 2005 but I've only visited him briefly in the last 3 years and he isn't reliable enough to use as an address.

Oddly enough, even though I pay taxes, the last 9 years I have received only a 1 dollar refund so, when I did my taxes this year, and saw 1 dollar again I did not freak out or even worry to care when the computer glitched as I tried to enter it. I just let it be. I heard that if you do not owe and the US doesn't owe you then it really doesn't matter if you file at the end of the year, (and in my case it really does NOT.)

Jen
p.s. edit to say, that Texas didn't have state taxes and I only just changed to an Arizona license this year, (January, so next year I will have to claim a state that does charge state taxes.)

[Bruce H]

When I was visiting California three or four years ago it was in the news that they had a reward program for turning in someone who was living there with an out of state license on their car.

[Darwin Maring]

If you work i. The state, you owe taxes.
If you are camping in a camp ground, not working, and are considered a transit, well then I guess you do t. Me, I just would not worry about it.

[vintageracer]

Originally Posted by Uplander

Smart people seek professional advise and reduce their tax burden.

Glenn seems to like donating his money to government agencies.
He may not know that drivers in the USA donate large volumes of their money for road construction every time they fill their gas tanks...taxes and more taxes that are supposed to be spent on roads...where does that money go??? In most cases it is lost in the state's "general fund" and never seen again!!!

That's one nice thing about Tennessee and the way the state constitution is setup regarding taxation and the annual state budget spending. Our gas tax must be spent on the road maintenance and upgrades. By law the fuel tax cannot be spent on general fund obligations.

When you spend the money collected by fuel sales on roads, highways and infrastructure and that result is why we have good roads in Tennessee which also win awards annually by several trucking associations and other organizations. With 5 different interstates crossing Tennessee lot's of visiting folks enjoy the pleasure of buying fuel in the State of Tennessee and contributing to our economy!

How about that. Spending tax collections on the specific item for which they were collected!

What a novel idea!!!

We in Tennessee also have NO State income tax on earned income. The State of Tennessee runs on sales tax collections which are already almost $1BB dollars ahead of the TOTAL annual sales tax collection projections for fiscal year 2016 and that's just thru August of 2016. Four more months to go of EXTRA sales tax collections going the bottom line of the states coffers. You gotta love running a state on the sales tax. The taxing of retail sales is equitable and the SAME for EVERYONE including all our states wonderful residents, visitors and visiting/resident illegal aliens!

[Darwin Maring]

I remember Iowa setting up inspection stations and dipping fuel tanks of big trucks and charging them road tax based on the fuel onboard. I dont know if they still do that or not.

[Uplander]

I assume Tennessee taxes real eastae at the local level to support local schools and fire/police depts. I also must assume Tennessee has a higher than normal sales tax if that is their only source of revenue for the state agencies.

I am currently trying to sell my home in New York which has one of the highest tax rates in the nation...it takes a lot of loose cash to run our corrupt state government...just watch the news to see elected officials being hauled into court on charges of pocketing hundreds of thousands of taxpayers dollars to augment the bribes they take to deal out contracts on the taxpayer's dime.
Honest politicians in New York are rare indeed.

My target states are either North or South Carolina once I sell my New York home.

[vintageracer]

Property tax is the realm of local county/city governments not state government and is very reasonable. A $100K value assessed residential home in Nashville/Davidson county has property taxes that are a touch less than $1,000/year. It is certainly cheaper in the outlying counties including Williamson County Tennessee which is included the Forbes Magazine listing of Top 25 Richest counties in the USA.

The state certainly has other taxes on business, corporations, vehicle license plates & registration (tax), gasoline tax for roads, Federal government for handouts and other avenues of revenue as do many other states.

Point is our retail economy is based upon commerce and the transaction of business. You buy something you pay sales tax. Don't want to pay sales tax? That's fine don't buy anything! You do have a choice!

Why would you want a tax system based upon income?

Income for most folks for the last 10 years has been flat or going down based upon all the news reporting. Those folks still find a way to BUY things and pay sales tax. The credit card companies say that total national credit card debt in the USA amounts to $15K for every person in the USA. Why would anyone have credit card debt? Simple. They spend "Mo Money" than they make therefore they have credit card debt.

With the AVERAGE family of 4 income in Tennessee at about $45k that means the average family with $15K worth of credit card debt has SPENT 30+% "Mo Money" than they make and the State of Tennessee benefits from their poor money management by collecting sales tax on the additional 30% of spending that they would not collect with an income tax.

I am not trying to convince anyone of anything just to illustrate how successful the taxation of sales versus income is for the State of Tennessee and the operation of our state government. We ain't broke like a LOT of states in the good ole USA!

[Uplander]

Tennessee along with several other southern states made Kiplinger's top ten states for taxes. If you get a chance a quick study of this reports and the ten worst states for taxes according to Kiplinger's is well worth the time.
One fact is clear....northeast states tax everyone to death and beyond!!
Southern states seem to balance taxes with either no state income tax or very low rates if they do tax residents.
Kiplinger's has a regular email newsletter that is free and worth subscribing to.

Note: The government wants all your money...they just have not figured out how to take it yet without revolution by the poor taxpayers.
You the taxpayer pay for every government hand out and program...only problem is sooner or later the politicians run out of other people's money...then they print money...that is called the national debt...the higher it goes the less the paper money they print is worth....think about it.

[Gennaver]

Originally Posted by Uplander

Gennaver,
How do you file your income tax? You must have an address and that would create a tax liability for state income tax....when you file your federal return you must supply an address for any refund you may be entitled to. Auto and travel trailer registration and insurance is also an issue....you must pick a state.

My situation is a little different though. I do not really have a home state and haven't for years.

I don't mention online often, is that I travel as a nurse because I work as an Active Duty nurse. This is also why my nursing license doesn't need to be in the state that I am working in but just needs to be in 'a' state. I hold two RN licenses in states that I no longer have any ties to at all. One I will let expire and the other is the state where I first got licensed in, so I will keep that.

Jen

[thrifty bill]

Originally Posted by Uplander

Tennessee along with several other southern states made Kiplinger's top ten states for taxes. If you get a chance a quick study of this reports and the ten worst states for taxes according to Kiplinger's is well worth the time.

One fact is clear....northeast states tax everyone to death and beyond!!
Southern states seem to balance taxes with either no state income tax or very low rates if they do tax residents.
Kiplinger's has a regular email newsletter that is free and worth subscribing to.

This. Some states get by with less, some take more. Some streamline/limit services, some are involved in everything. Since government is not efficient, the more they do, the more you pay. Want $1 in services, send them $1.50. Some states have extremely generous pensions for state employees (think CA for example). Tax payers have to pony up for these expenses unless you are in IL.

Some states are blessed with abundant natural resources that pay a lot of bills (think oil in AK). Most of the voting public want generous state services but do not want to pay for them.

If you have the flexibility to choose your state of residency, the savings can be huge.