exiting tax (sales, real estate, attorney)

[phyll]

ok I thought I heard it all, If you leave NJ to move to another state you have to pay a tax? I thought the person was kidding , they said ,no, they were serious

[BobKovacs]

There have been a number of threads on this, and to summarize them- there is not an exit tax.

There is a "real estate transfer tax" that you pay, regardless of whether you stay in NJ or move out of state, and it's based on the sales price of the house. These taxes are commonplace in a number of states besides NJ.

What people keep referring to as the "exit tax" is the closing attorney collecting estimated state income tax on capital gains, which has to be done if you list an out of state address as your new address. The theory is that you will end up owing state income tax on your capital gains, so the state wants to get it now, rather than having to chase you down out of state. If you end up not owing the taxes that are held at closing, you get them refunded.

Bob

[Stripes17]

I can't recall exactly, but when we moved out of NJ in 1990, our income taxes for that year were screwy!

I seem to remember NJ collected state income tax on everything we made that year (even our Virginia earnings).

That was totally unfair to me as we moved out in February.