Residency challenges—has any state ever gone after you?

I have plenty of clients who moved from another state to Louisiana and because they have an LA address on the return, the state assumes all of their income should be subject to Louisiana tax. I have had Louisiana challenge a few clients that moved away, but not as many that have moved in.

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I have plenty of clients who moved from another state to Louisiana and because they have an LA address on the return, the state assumes all of their income should be subject to Louisiana tax.

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This happened to me, personally, when I moved from TX back to LA. I moved in January, so when I filed my tax returns that summer (yeah, I'm an extender) I used my LA address on my federal return, and didn't file an LA return (because all of my income for the year being filed was Texas income).

Couple of years later, LDR info-shares with IRS and thinks I should have filed an LA return. But the weird thing is, they sent all of the notices... to my Texas address. To this day, I have no idea how they even had that. I had no idea this was happening until a couple of years later when my federal tax refund got scooped and sent to LA. I call and was told about my missing tax return and how they assessed tax on me and I had a debt.

Took about 3 months and a small forest worth of paper, but got it resolved and got my money back.

Yes. I had to back pay LA taxes after I moved. I was young and didn’t do things properly, so was still a legal resident of LA even though I was living in Houston.

Sucked but that’s life.

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They ask for proof of residency in my new state, including vehicle registration and drivers license. Of course I couldn’t provide that for the new state so I provided them utility bills, paychecks, etc. that showed my new address but they insisted vehicle registration and drivers license determined residency. They said I owed income taxes for that year, thankfully the state I moved to didn’t have income taxes so I just paid Louisiana to get them off my back.

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This. At the time I believed I was going to move back to Louisiana so I didn’t change anything over. And like you, they didn’t take my bills as residency proof in a new state.

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Also, keep in mind that most states require you to get a DL in their state, within 30 days of moving in.

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Right, at the time I just banked on not getting pulled over and if I did then come up with a story about just being in town for work or visiting a friend. It all worked out, except for the taxes.

California tried every year when I was stationed there by the military.

I had to send copies of my taxes and residency to them each year.

NY goes after my clients all the time. Tax man will show up at their NY apartments checking expiration dates on food, looking at your clothes in closets, checking cell phone records, etc. it’s really aggressive up here.

Rush says the same thing in his show. He has to fly into NJ just to keep the NY tax man off his back.

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California tried every year when I was stationed there by the military.

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Same with me when I was stationed at NTC. They wanted proof I filed a state tax return in another state, but I was a resident of Texas so that didn’t exist. So I just sent them a copy of my orders and every year when the inevitable letter came saying I owed them back taxes.