OutdoorPhotographer wrote:
mabynack wrote:
I've seen it in the military. It's mostly centered around taxes or trying to vote in more than one state. I've also seen guys get ticketed for having a registration from one state and driver's license from another.
As long as you comply with the state residency requirements you should be okay.
You've seen military get in trouble? I know folks in the military who don't know the rules but it is pretty simple and similar to full-timing but with caveats.
My domicile is Louisiana, my home of record and home state. I vote there. My vehicles are registered there and my drivers license is there. I live wherever the Navy tells me to live. The laws do allow me to register my vehicle in the state I'm stationed or my home state which normally only applies when I buy a car and it simpler to register locally at first. Louisiana does have the benefit of having cheap vehicle registration and permanent tags for trailers including TTs.
Now, as to "domicile police," you better believe they exist in certain states. I have had multiple run ins with CA although always resolved successfully. They sent a letter every year saying it looked like I lived in CA but didn't pay CA taxes. That was easily resolved by checking the box on the form on military. However, we also got a nasty gram from the CA highway patrol that our car with LA tags had been observed in CA over an extended time period and we owed a $500 fine in addition to having 30 days to register it in the state. The trooper I talked to it when I declared I was protected by law was not friendly and tried to pull "well your wife probably isn't so she's owes the money." I keep things in my name for that reason but law now protects military spouses.
As a full-timer, I would not stay in one location in CA an extended period without being a CA resident. I would also be careful if you have income from a state not your domicile. That doesn't mean that state is your domicile but it doesn't necessarily avoid that state's taxes either.
I had much the same experience in California. I was a Florida resident at the time I was reassigned from Spain to southern California. My car had Florida plates. My drivers license was from Florida. I lived in an apartment two miles from the air force base. I was stopped numerous times by the local police for not having California plates and for not having a California drivers license. By federal law, I could maintain my Florida residency, car registration, and drivers license. It got so bad I had to have the base's judge advocate general office intercede. It seems the local cops thought I had a spouse that worked in California, and at that point I would have been required to have the car registration changed to California. I was single at the time. I DID meet the woman who became my wife in California, but we married just before I was reassigned from California to Germany. I told my wife as we were crossing the state line that happiness was California in my rear view mirror.
I won't even begin the discussion on how California tried to say they were entitled to tax my retired pay based on my two year assignment to March Air Force Base. Money grubbing bastages!
