Anyone move to Washington to avoid capital gains in OR? (Vancouver: RV parks, 2015)

[iuecon99]

Trying to find out for example if you're planning to recognize some gains in July 2015, when do you need to move across the border to avoid the capital gains hit? In California, you have to have moved a full year in advance but it's been hard to find this information for Oregon. Anyone with any experience there?

[StealthRabbit]

I would suggest you have at least 183 days of domicile in WA in 2015 and BE Domiciled in IN WA BEFORE you 'realize' the gains. (EZ to do via voter registration, DL, and public utilities (And now cell phone / Drone / RFID tracking )

ORS 316.027 - Resident defined - 2013 Oregon Revised Statutes

or...

critical step in determining whether an individual can avoid Oregon tax by moving
out of Oregon is understanding what it means to be a “resident” for Oregon tax purposes.
Oregon income tax law generally defines an Oregon “resident” as someone “domi-
ciled” in Oregon. ORS 316.027(1)(a)(A). Domicile is generally the place an individual
considers his permanent home, the one to which he intends to return when he is away.
OAR 150-316.027(1) states: “A person can only have one domicile at a given time. It
continues as the domicile until the person demonstrates an intent to abandon it, to
acquire a new domicile, and actually resides in the new domicile. Factors that contribute
to determining domicile include family, business activities and social connections.”
An individual not domiciled in Oregon still will be treated as an Oregon resident if he maintains a “permanent place of abode” in Oregon and “spends” a total of more than 200 days in Oregon during a taxable year, unless he proves that he is in Oregon only for
a “temporary or transitory” purpose. ORS 316.027(1)(a)(B)

http://www.lanepowell.com/wp-content...lfield_tax.pdf


1) Do NOT spend over 30 days in OR (if you do not have another domicile)
2) DO NOT spend 200.1 days in OR if you have a permanent residence in OR (but are domiciled elsewhere)

3) Do be advised there are other GREAT choices besides WA.

SD is 'Income Tax Free', and requires ONE overnight per lifetime to declare domicile!!! Then you can travel / live anywhere (providing you do not 'trigger' domicile in another location (i.e. CA !!!, or another greedy state). US Protectorates will work too Some are pretty NICE, a few of my PNW tenants and internet business friends have 'escaped' to https://www.google.com/search?q=isla...Q&ved=0CFcQsAQ!

U.S. Virgin Islands: An Offshore Tax Planning Jurisdiction - FindLaw

[NCDavid]

Originally Posted by iuecon99

Trying to find out for example if you're planning to recognize some gains in July 2015, when do you need to move across the border to avoid the capital gains hit? In California, you have to have moved a full year in advance but it's been hard to find this information for Oregon. Anyone with any experience there?

My sincere advice is that you consult a tax specialist rather than rely on any advice from a gossip forum like this.

[StealthRabbit]

Originally Posted by NCDavid

My sincere advice is that you consult a tax specialist rather than rely on any advice from a gossip forum like this.

and / or you can read the State Law! (very simple, very accessible, quite well defined and articulated in this case)

If you have an issue interpreting what you read you best hire a professional but I have found most tax professionals are not very good at reading and correctly interpreting laws (they prefer / trained in following RULES).

I utilize 'enrolled-agents' in several states including WA and OR. I find them the best for my many businesses and cross border tax issues, but I also read the law, as the 'professionals' have a very broad practice and do not have the vested interest that you do. (Going to jail).

YMMV, as well as your skill / expertise.

here is a list, (Mine are FULL / not on the lists, but no new clients anyway).

IRS Tax Enrolled Agents to Save Taxes in Vancouver, WA 98686 | TaxHop.com
Oregon Society of Enrolled Agents | NAEA
Welcome | Oregon Chapter of the NAEA

[NCDavid]

Originally Posted by iuecon99

Trying to find out for example if you're planning to recognize some gains in July 2015, when do you need to move across the border to avoid the capital gains hit? In California, you have to have moved a full year in advance but it's been hard to find this information for Oregon. Anyone with any experience there?

Purely amateur response: Oregon uses a part-year tax system, and you pay state income taxes on income earned only for the part of the year you actually live in Oregon. If you receive capital gains after you have moved out of Oregon, they are not taxable by Oregon. Establishing Washington residency requires only that you have a domicile in Washington state. However, if you have a Washington address and still have an Oregon address when you receive the income, that gets fuzzy and you may still be liable for the Oregon tax.
Put more simply, if you want to avoid Oregon tax on those July capital gains, move to Washington before you receive the gains.
And I still recommend you consult a professional tax advisor, which I am not.

[JonathanLB]

I will move to Vancouver in a few years (when my gf is done at PSU) to avoid state income taxes and capital gains taxes both. No interest in continuing to pay them and I would like to buy a condo in Las Vegas as well, so having two residences in two no-income-tax states just makes the most sense.

PS: Not trying to give you tax advice, but a lot of people grow up following every law and thinking, "The law is the law, man! You can't get away from the law!" Yes, you can. Just because a state passes a law doesn't make it so. Just because a state says you owe them money doesn't make it so. Most of the time, they can't even collect on that money once you're gone, and the rest of the time, you probably don't owe them what they say you owe them. California has been caught red-handed MANY times trying to collect income taxes to people who fled the state and in fact don't owe anything.

Oregon can pass a law all it wants and say that if you moved from Oregon 2 months ago and now you sell your stocks, you owe a capital gains tax, but that's wrong. If you established residency in another state, you don't owe Oregon anything no matter what they say. It doesn't matter if they want to pass a law saying all income you ever earn goes to Oregon and your kids income goes to Oregon too. Just because they say so doesn't make it so. Especially once you leave a state, all I can say to them is good luck trying to collect on that.

[StealthRabbit]

Originally Posted by JonathanLB

I will move to Vancouver in a few years (when my gf is done at PSU) to avoid state income taxes and capital gains taxes both.

... If you established residency in another state, you don't owe Oregon anything no matter what they say. It doesn't matter if they want to pass a law saying all income you ever earn goes to Oregon and your kids income goes to Oregon too. Just because they say so doesn't make it so. Especially once you leave a state, all I can say to them is good luck trying to collect on that.

Wrong... The OP is considering a July gain. If OP resides in OREGON the majority of the tax yr (Jan -July...) OR will be interested in collecting some capital gains, and they have ways to do that!

Play it safe...
1) do not trigger OR domicile for 2015 (leave soon)
2) Establish DOCUMENTED domicile in a tax free state or protectorate BEFORE you realize your gains., and with the majority of the yr ahead of you in the new domicile. (Before you make / order the transaction)

I am not a tax adviser, but I realize you have a risk of being BURNT.

Take heed (and rehash with your professional accountant / tax attorney).

[bler144]

Originally Posted by JonathanLB

PS: Not trying to give you tax advice, but a lot of people grow up following every law and thinking, "The law is the law, man! You can't get away from the law!" Yes, you can. Just because a state passes a law doesn't make it so. Just because a state says you owe them money doesn't make it so. Most of the time, they can't even collect on that money once you're gone, and the rest of the time, you probably don't owe them what they say you owe them.

Some of what you're talking about is comfort with accepting risk. The state (or a muni) may not be able to enforce a given law, whether on practical grounds, or because the law itself won't hold up in court. Or they may decide it's not worth it to try.

The former requires some willingness to accept that you may eventually be caught and punished, and the latter requires some willingness to fight it through the legal system.

The state probably isn't going to come after you for evading $5 in tax liability, even if they could - it's simply not worth the time/money in most cases unless your name is Al Capone. Change that to $50,000 and suddenly you're a much juicier target.

Some people accept risk because they're naive about the consquences; others because they've examined them thoroughly and deem the cost/benefit analysis to be worthwhile. Most are probably somewhere in the middle. There was a Eugene thread on smoking MJ in public and the same basic logic applies. Can you still be ticketed for smoking on your patio? Probably. If you fought it in court would you win? Probably not. Are you likely to be ticketed? Also probably not. So should you smoke MJ on your patio?

Everyone has to decide for themselves what degree of risk they can accept. But saying "it's just a law, they can't enforce that so don't even worry about it" without getting into detail is probably not good advice.

[JonathanLB]

Exactly and no it doesn't matter if you spent 7 months in Oregon and then left for capital gains. That's 100% wrong. That could only apply to income taxes where you spending the majority of the year in any state triggers domicile. If you leave today by buying a new home and moving and tomorrow sell your $200 million company sure Oregon could try to desperately salvage something but they have no legal grounds of doing so and would lose and they know it. When you're gone you're gone and states have much less power than most people think once you leave. Almost none, really.

As an example go Google extradition between states - most states will never extradite for any misdemeanor and most won't even extradite for non violent felonies even literally right next door to each other. They lack the funds. If you shoplifted in Texas and there's a warrant out for your arrest another state like OR may not even know because it never enters the federal database. If it does at all, TX won't pay OR to extradite because they don't have the desire or funding. So the idea that these states are going to have better luck money grabbing you once you're gone is laughable. Again many attempts like that have been made especially by CA and almost all failures.

[texasdiver]

People do the same thing in Texas. In fact there are big RV parks north of Houston that are basically in the business of providing domicile services for out-of-state retirees who want to domicile in TX for tax purposes but not actually live there, as TX is like WA in having no income tax. They provide mailing services for example, such as scanning your paper mail and emailing it to you so you can maintain a TX domicile without actually being there much.