State of residence for full timers

[ChemistJason]

Question for the full timers out there. If you're truly full timing it and have no physical address, what is your state/county/city/township for things like voting, tax status, etc?

I would think you'd be most interested "declaring" your residence in whatever state is most advantageous for taxation purposes, but if there are other considerations I'd like to hear them.

[Oldme]

Requirement here in Ga have changed for new or renewal.
This is what is now needed:
Your current driver’s license, if you have one
Proof of identity, such as a birth certificate or passport.
Your Social Security card.
2 documents showing your residential address, including a utility bill or bank statement.
If you’ve changed your name after marriage, you’ll need to bring your marriage license.

Ga. refuses anything with a PO Box address stating the 2005 REAL-ID Act required by Honeland Security.

2005 REAL-ID Act:

The law, passed in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept 11, 2001, requires all states to bring their driver's licenses under a national standard and to link their record-keeping systems.

[fpoole]

Heheh, kewl, a lot of helpful info..

Insurance:
checking now on the other "Insurance" threads and luckily not a big issue right now, a year or so before I can sell the condo, so not going Full Time yet. I now know what to look for. I'll take a second look at the Good Sam mailings, so thanks for the heads up.

USPS:
heheh, yah, mailings.. sigh, after 5 yrs in the condo, I'm still getting mail delivered to the old person so I've learned the USPS lesson. As most of my "Billings" are online and auto-bank acct, I don't think that I'll have to many things on a billing aspect to worry about. I do most, if not all, my stuff on line and have it set up that way. This time period will allow me to list the items that I actually do receive, other than the Value Packs, hehheh and see what options are available.

Govt:
Passport and GOES was my main concern, apparently not a problem so the rest should be fine, IRS etc..

Ok, now off to the Insurance angle.. heheh,
One step at a time and thank Gawd for these forums and the Member's willingness to help..

At this time of life, it's a lot easier not trying to "Reinvent the Wheel" each time...

Happy Trails..

[JimK-NY]

Try National Interstate for fulltimers insurance. State Farm, Prudential, Allied agents often believe they can provide appropriate service but without a homeowners policy there are big gaps. You also need to consider a separate "umbrella" policy in addition to fulltimers insurance. That is even true with National Interstate.

The main test of residency state is the "intent." Staying a long time in one State can imply intent. Although we are discussing the intricacies of this issue, I had very minimal problems in 4 years. I would still be a South Dakota resident if Dakota Post had not demanded a change of address to their new place of business. Changing addresses is a nightmare at least for me. You need to change addresses for financial institutions, credit cards, pensions, insurance companies, etc, etc. Don't forget the Federal government. There is an IRS change of address form.

DO NOT count on the Post Office to forward your mail to the new address. My physical move was delayed and weeks after I submitted a forwarding request my mail was still showing up in the old mailbox. I visited the Post Office twice and less mail was placed in the old box but it kept on happening even for 1st class mail. Be sure to check your States comptrollers office for abandoned funds. One of my financial institutions closed an account and mailed a check to my old address. When the check was not cashed they eventually turned over the money to the State. I found out after tax time when the IRS added $17000 to my income for the year.

[BarbaraOK]

You can do a 'vacation' forward for 6 months for the condo, stop it when you are back in town, start again when you leave. That's what we do for the place in Arizona - let the PO know that we are leaving on such and such a date (say April 15th) and they start forwarding to our Livingston address. Come fall, the 'vacation' forwarding stops & we again receive mail at the park model. HOWEVER, we have everything that we possibility can done online, so utilities, etc. are all taken care of and we never receive a bill via snail mail. Even our insurance is done online - receive an email when they come up for renewal, log in and pay the bill, that's it.

We also did individual change of addresses for all of the major things, so after 9 years, the only address they have on file is the Livingston address.

Just a heads up, but State Farm doesn't do fulltime insurance.

Barb

[fpoole]

JimK wrote:
There are some issues with using a mailing service as a permanent address. Some people, businesses, and Federal government agencies seem to believe that it is required for everyone to have a fixed address such as a house, apartment or piece of land.....

Thanks Jim, that's sort of what I was thinking too. Apparently the Passport and Homeland Security stuff is not really affected as noted above that the "Address is just penciled in..." and that was my main concern.

While I currently have a condo, I would think it would be just an out of state property. I was concerned that they use the 'Place of Occupancy' for a longer time period, like 6 months or whatever.

I also recall, from a previous PMB years ago with Mail Etc (bought by the current UPS) that certain "Addresses" were tagged as PMB locations regardless of the "Apt/unit/whatever #) as a PMB and since you can live in a PMB Box, they pushed further for something like "Where do you Sleep at night" thing.

One form the PMB has is the notarized Post Office form that the PO uses as authourization to forward mail to the PMB. I realized if I had sent that and I still wanted some limited mail to condo directly, it was get caught in a loop.

Local business, like utilities would be sent to the PMB who would bundle it up and send to condo an PO would intercept and send to PMB, heheh, it got a "Doh !!!" factor...

So not going to send that form in until I hit the road. Also, it'll give me time to change address and see how it works.

Thanks for the heads up, that's what I was looking for, the "Issues" in some states. I'm currently getting the Insurance for truck/camper/buggy etc.. hopefully it won't be too out of line, State Farm, been with them for some 25+yrs, which doesn't really mean anything, no claims. heheh..

Onward and upward....
thanks..

[4X4Dodger]

ChemistJason wrote:
Question for the full timers out there. If you're truly full timing it and have no physical address, what is your state/county/city/township for things like voting, tax status, etc?

I would think you'd be most interested "declaring" your residence in whatever state is most advantageous for taxation purposes, but if there are other considerations I'd like to hear them.

If you are truly retired then taxation may not be the wisest thing to put first when considering a residence. Generally as a retired person your income is lower and some of it not taxable. Therefore income tax would not be such a great factor.

What is a more important consideration is your ongoing non variable expenses...especially Auto and RV insurance. It does you no good to pick a low tax state if that state has a high auto insurance rate.

And while many choose on the basis of the cost to REGISTER their vehicles the real issue is how much is the yearly license fee.

It's these ongoing expenses that should be first consideration.

[JimK-NY]

I was an official South Dakota resident for 4 years until recently. I changed because I bought a house in another state and after owning the house for a year maintaining a SD residency became confusing.

South Dakota is a great state for residency: no income taxes, no vehicle inspections, low vehicle insurance costs and it is or at least was easy to establish residency. I only needed a receipt from one night in a motel or campground. We already had a mailing service and after the one night we were able to establish residency with new plates, registration, vehicle title. South Dakota is very accommodating for residents who travel. There is no issue with things such as jury duty or voting.

There are some issues with using a mailing service as a permanent address. Some people, businesses, and Federal government agencies seem to believe that it is required for everyone to have a fixed address such as a house, apartment or piece of land. To minimize problems I always filled out forms using my mail box number in place of an apartment number. Even that did not always work. When I registered for social security the paperwork specified that a mailing address was not acceptable. I used the mailing address anyway and made a comment on the form. That worked with no further issues.

It turns out that residency is a strange and legally complicated issue. Most of the laws and regulations involving residency read like gibberish. Personal "intent" is usually a major factor. States want to collect incomes taxes even though you do not own or rent property. They can be unfair and very aggressive when it comes to taxes. However, they do not want you to qualify as a resident if you live in another State and then move to attend a State college or university. Sometimes they even want out of State tuition but then require students to perform jury duty.

Even though I own a house in another State and live there several months a year, I could have maintained my South Dakota residency. Unfortunately I used Alternative Resources as my mail provider. The owner sold and his business was bought by Dakota Post. Dakota Post screwed up my mail deliveries and then told me I needed to change my mailing address. I found about 30 places I needed to notify and new ones keep popping up. There was going to be an issue with drivers license renewals so I changed residency to another State.

[BarbaraOK]

So you are on Medicare?

Barb

[fpoole]

Yah, thanks Clay... I found it a little later on..

So, it doesn't appear to be any big deal, just update at the GOES site or passport when it's official.

I did or will be signed up with MyDakotaAddress.com, heading over there on Sunday for a Tuesday meet & greet with paperwork, 2 nights at the Super 8... DL, done..

Now.. heheh, for the camper.. LOL.. end of year if lucky, but I wanted to see how this worked out first...

I'm done...
thanks all..

[Clay_L]

SD has made it easy for full timers to meet the new requirements and get drivers licenses,register vehicles, and register to vote.
See HERE for info from the mail forwarding service we used. You can call them with questions also.
We used them for 8 or 9 years and had excellent service. There are other good ones in SD also.

The last time I got a passport I was full timing and domiciled in SD. At that time you wrote your address in your passport in pencil so it could be changed easily if you moved. Don't know about now.

[fpoole]

NEXUS - Passports - Enhanced Drivers license = Affected?

Just curious on the Mail forwarding/registrations etc, SD would be my choice, if there were any issues with the Govt - Homeland Security, on using them for Passport Residence?

I would guess in the way back when, it wouldn't, but nowadays??
Has anyone with the above had any problems in changing stuff over to the Mail service? or do they have requirements?

I live in a condo in Seattle, WA area, getting TC rig by end of year and will sell condo when market brings back the value to pay off VA loan. Once I get the camper rig, I'll be in it most if not all of the time cruising around.

So I was just wondering if anyone has had any issues with changing addresses with those items.

Thanks for any insight.. I don't really want to start messing around with them unless I have to.. NEXUS is great and I plan to hit Canada a lot.

Thanks..

(This might be a 'dead thread' but only alternative is to start a new one and seems like it would apply here too..)

[usnret]

Since becoming a fulltimer and changing my state residency to FL, I have not had any problems with residency issues. I use the address issued trough MYRVMAIL.COM mail forwarding service. It met the requirements for; voting, drivers license, and CCW permit.

PS
I do not think I am doing anything illegal.

[Dutch_12078]

DewOnAPetal wrote:
I am not fulltime yet but when I sell my house in NY and live full-time in my RV I will not have a "home" so I might as well establish residency where I see fit. I could use my brother's address, but is that real? No - I don't live there. But I will have to call some state home and I struggle with this as I get all my ducks in a row. I don't know where that will be just yet as I may travel for a few years. You might call me "homeless" if you wish.

You'll still have a "home" as a fulltimer, it'll just have wheels on it instead of being anchored in one place on the ground. You'll be "houseless", but certainly not "homeless". Read through the many posts on selecting a domicile state on this forum. The Escapees forum is also a great source of fulltiming information. There are very valid reasons for choosing your state, but those reasons need to fit your specific situation, making it hard for anyone else to tell you which state is best. Do your research, and remember that even if your situation changes later on, changing to another domicile state is really a lot easier as a fulltime RV'er than it is as a grounded house owner.

[DewOnAPetal]

I am not fulltime yet but when I sell my house in NY and live full-time in my RV I will not have a "home" so I might as well establish residency where I see fit. I could use my brother's address, but is that real? No - I don't live there. But I will have to call some state home and I struggle with this as I get all my ducks in a row. I don't know where that will be just yet as I may travel for a few years. You might call me "homeless" if you wish.