What Your CPA Should Have
Told You About Moving to Florida

Important Disclaimer

This guide is for educational purposes only. It does not constitute tax, legal, or financial advice. State tax laws and residency rules are complex, vary by individual circumstance, and change over time. Consult a qualified CPA and a tax attorney who specializes in multi-state residency before making any relocation or financial decisions. Saltwater Estates and Barefoot Realty & Investments LLC are real estate brokerages — not tax advisors.

The Two Tests You Must Pass

1. Domicile test: Where is your permanent, intended home? This is a facts-and-circumstances test — intent plus conduct. You must affirmatively establish Florida as your domicile and demonstrably abandon your prior state.

2. Statutory residency test: Do you maintain a home in the old state AND spend more than 183 days there? If yes to both, you're a statutory resident regardless of domicile. You must pass this test too.

I spend summers in Connecticut and winters in Palm Beach. Can I just claim Florida as my domicile?

Possibly — but "spending winters in Palm Beach" is not the same as establishing Florida as your domicile. Connecticut (like New York) uses a two-pronged approach to residency: the domicile test and the statutory residency test. Even if you successfully argue Florida domicile, CT can still tax you as a statutory resident if you maintain a permanent place of abode in Connecticut and spend more than 183 days per year in the state.

The standard isn't where you want to live — it's where your life is centered. Your primary bank, your doctors, your attorney, your accountant, your social club, your voter registration, where your most valued possessions are kept. Connecticut will build a picture of your life from all these data points and argue around your claimed domicile if the facts don't support it.

The right structure: establish clear Florida domicile (Declaration of Domicile filed in the FL county clerk's office, FL driver's license, FL voter registration, FL auto registration), and spend less than 183 days in CT. Both conditions matter.

I run my company out of New York. Does that mean I'm still a New York taxpayer even if I live in Florida?

Not automatically — but it creates significant audit risk, particularly with what New York calls the "convenience of the employer" doctrine. If you work remotely from Florida for a New York employer or a business you control that is headquartered in New York, NY may argue that your out-of-state work days are "for your own convenience" rather than a business necessity — and tax those days as New York work days.

This doctrine is aggressively applied and has been upheld in courts. The practical effect: if you're a NY business owner who moves to Florida but keeps running your NY-based company remotely, you may still owe NY income tax on a large portion of your income.

Mitigation strategies include: restructuring the business's state of operation, establishing a legitimate Florida business nexus, documenting that the Florida location serves a real business purpose, and working with a NY-specific tax attorney before you move. This is one of the most consequential and least-discussed pitfalls in Northeast-to-Florida relocation.

My spouse isn't ready to move full-time. How does that affect my residency claim?

It complicates it significantly. Residency auditors look at the whole household — particularly for married couples. If your spouse maintains a home in New York, enrolls your children in school in New York, and is present there the majority of the year, that's evidence that your primary life is still in New York regardless of where you claim domicile.

This doesn't make the move impossible, but it changes the calculus. If your spouse is present in NY more than 183 days, their residency is clear. Your residency is a separate question — but auditors will use the family situation as circumstantial evidence of where your life is actually centered.

Families with split residence situations should work with a tax attorney who specializes in residency audits before filing the first Florida-resident return. The documentation strategy is different from the "clean move" scenario.

What counts as a 'day' in New York for the 183-day threshold?

Any part of a day counts as a full day. If you land at JFK at 11:58 PM to catch an early flight, that night counts. If you're in a board meeting in Manhattan for 90 minutes and fly back to Palm Beach, that counts. Departure days typically count; arrival days may or may not depending on the specific state's rules, but NY generally counts both.

The only commonly recognized exceptions are days in transit through NY (no substantial business activity) and days spent in NY solely for medical treatment in certain situations.

Practical implication: 183 days is not a target to approach. It is a hard ceiling. UHNW individuals subject to NY audit are well-advised to stay under 120–130 NY days to create a meaningful buffer that accounts for disputed days, travel ambiguity, and any days inadvertently spent there.

I've heard New York is particularly aggressive about residency audits. What does that actually look like?

New York's Department of Taxation and Finance maintains a dedicated Residency Audit Unit — a specialized team whose sole purpose is auditing claims of non-residency or domicile change for high-income individuals. They are systematic, thorough, and well-resourced.

What they actually do: they will request your cell phone records to map your physical location day by day. They will request credit card statements to see where you spent money. They will ask for your travel records — every flight, every hotel, every toll. They will contact your hairdresser, your doctor, your dentist, your country club, your housekeeper. They will look at where your pets are registered, where your art collection is located, where your safe deposit box is held, and where your most valuable jewelry is kept.

This is not an exaggeration. A NY residency audit is a forensic investigation of your life, and it typically covers three to four years. The cost of defense alone — attorney fees, accounting fees, document production — can run $50,000–$200,000 even on a successful audit. The cost of losing can be multiples of what you thought you'd saved.

None of this means you shouldn't move. It means you should move correctly.

What about estate tax? Is Florida actually better for estate planning?

Yes, materially. Florida has no state estate tax and no state inheritance tax. Compare that to:

— Massachusetts: estate tax on estates over $2M (up to 16% rate) — Connecticut: estate tax on estates over $13.6M (up to 12%) — New York: estate tax on estates over $6.94M (up to 16%), with a "cliff" provision that taxes the entire estate if it exceeds the exemption by more than 5% — New Jersey: no estate tax (repealed 2018), but 15-16% inheritance tax for some beneficiaries

For a $20M estate, the difference between dying as a New York domiciliary vs. a Florida domiciliary can exceed $1.5M in estate taxes. For a $50M estate, the differential with Massachusetts can approach $7M.

Estate planning attorneys use Florida domicile as a core pillar of multi-generational wealth strategy for this reason. It's not just about income taxes during your lifetime — it's about what transfers to the next generation intact.

Can I keep my apartment in New York after I establish Florida domicile?

Yes — maintaining a NY apartment doesn't automatically make you a NY resident. But it is one of the primary factors in establishing what New York calls a "permanent place of abode," which is a prerequisite for the statutory residency test.

If you keep a NY apartment AND spend more than 183 days in NY, you're a statutory resident regardless of your domicile claim. If you keep the apartment but stay under 183 NY days, you may avoid statutory residency — but the apartment is still evidence in a domicile challenge.

Some clients choose to reduce their NY apartment to something that's harder to characterize as a "permanent place of abode" — a studio, a hotel membership, or a family member's property they occasionally use. Others keep the apartment and simply maintain meticulous day-counting records. The right answer depends on your specific situation and how your attorney structures the residency argument.

If I move to Florida before a business sale, when do I need to establish residency for the sale proceeds to be taxed in Florida?

This is the question with the highest financial stakes — and the most aggressive audit attention. The general principle: you must be a Florida resident at the time the income is earned or the gain is recognized. For a business sale, that typically means the closing date.

But states will look behind the closing date. If you move to Florida two weeks before a business sale that was in negotiation for six months, NY will argue that the gain was accrued while you were a NY resident and will attempt to apportion it. The strength of that argument depends on the facts — the structure of the deal, when the LOI was signed, when material terms were agreed, and how clearly the closing coincided with your established FL residency.

The defensible position requires: FL domicile clearly established well before the sale closes (ideally before LOI), 183+ Florida days in the year of the sale, minimal NY days that year, and clean documentation of the domicile shift. Working backward from a sale date to determine the minimum defensible timeline is a task for a tax attorney, not a calculator — but the general guidance is: earlier is significantly better than later.

What's the difference between domicile and residency — and why does it matter?

These terms are used interchangeably in casual conversation but are legally distinct, and the distinction drives most of the complexity in state tax relocation.

Domicile is your true, permanent home — the place you intend to return to indefinitely. It's a question of intent, not just physical presence. You can only have one domicile at a time. Changing your domicile from NY to FL requires demonstrating that you've abandoned NY as your permanent home and adopted FL.

Residency is a statutory concept. Most states define a statutory resident as someone who maintains a permanent place of abode in the state AND spends more than 183 days there, regardless of domicile. A person can be domiciled in Florida but taxed as a NY resident if they keep a NY apartment and spend 184 days there.

The practical implication: you need to win on both tests to exit full NY taxation. Domicile change alone is not enough if you maintain NY ties and time. The 183-day rule alone is not enough if you've also failed to establish clear FL domicile. Both must be right.