The Domicile & Tax Residency Problem

States are getting more aggressive

For a growing number of Americans with homes in more than one state, the question of which one is legally "home" has become more contested than ever. As remote work makes it easy to live and work almost anywhere, and as more people split time between multiple properties, states have gotten more aggressive about pursuing residents they believe still owe them tax revenue.

New York City has recently moved to tax nonresident owners of pied-a-terre apartments, and California lawmakers have floated a wealth tax targeting billionaire residents. These are not isolated moves -- they reflect a broader trend of states leaning harder on residency rules to keep tax dollars from walking out the door. Tax attorneys who specialize in residency disputes report that formal residency audits are becoming markedly more common as states try to keep pace with an increasingly mobile, multi-home population.

It's harder to prove than most people realize

When a state audits your residency, it isn't just asking where your driver's license is registered. Auditors weigh a wide range of factors -- often called "indicia of domicile" -- to reconstruct where you actually spent your time and built your life:

• The number of days physically present in each state
• Where your primary home, family, and personal belongings are located
• Voter registration, driver's license, and vehicle registration
• Where you bank, see doctors, and belong to clubs or religious institutions
• Where your children go to school

Physical presence -- the actual day count -- is often the single biggest factor, and it's also the hardest one to prove after the fact. Memories fade. Receipts get thrown away. Credit card and phone records only show where you spent money or where a device pinged a cell tower, not where you actually were each day. By the time an audit arrives, months or years after the fact, most people simply don't have a reliable record.

How whereWUZi helps

whereWUZi runs quietly in the background and logs your approximate location every day, automatically, without any effort on your part. Over time this builds a dated, contemporaneous record of where you were -- exactly the kind of documentation that residency audits look for.

The Location Calendar lays out your history month by month, making it simple to see at a glance how many days you spent in each state or city. Any month can be exported as a PDF to share with an accountant or attorney building your residency case. And because everything stays on your device -- no account, no cloud, no uploads -- your location history is never anyone's business but yours until you decide to share it.

whereWUZi isn't a substitute for legal or tax advice. But a daily, automatic log of where you actually were can become an important piece of the puzzle when it's time to establish domicile or defend a tax residency position.