THE BARATELLI INSTITUTE · Mentoring at Scale
STATE RESIDENCY DECISION SUPPORT

What is your move
actually worth?

State income tax differs by 13 points across the country. On a $5M business sale, that's $665,000. On $500K of ongoing income, it's $65,000 a year. Run the math before you commit to a moving van.

YOUR DECISION
1
Where you are now
2
Income & events
3
Destination states
4
Domicile factors
5
After-tax comparison
STAGE 1 OF 5

Your current state

Start with where you are today. The math compares your current state to the destinations you're considering.

STAGE 2 OF 5

Your income and events

The math is different for ongoing income vs. one-time events. Both matter.

Annual ongoing income

$
$
$
$
$
$

One-time taxable event (next 1-3 years)

$
TOTAL TAXABLE BASE (CURRENT YEAR + EVENT)
$5,000,000
STAGE 3 OF 5

Pick 1-3 destination states

Pick the states you're considering. Sorted with the no-tax states at the top.

STAGE 4 OF 5

Domicile readiness

Tax residency is established by where you actually live and what you actually do — not by which driver's license you carry. Check off everything you can credibly do at the destination. Aggressive states (California, New York) audit hard. The more boxes checked, the cleaner the move.

Primary home — buy or long-term lease at the destination; spend more nights there than anywhere else (target: 200+ nights/year, minimum 183).
Sell or substantially reduce footprint at old state — selling the old primary home is the cleanest signal. If keeping it, document it as a vacation property.
Driver's license & vehicle registration — switch to destination state immediately.
Voter registration — register and vote at destination address.
Banking & financial accounts — change primary bank, brokerage statements, credit card billing, and tax filing address to destination.
Medical & professional services — establish doctors, dentist, attorney, CPA at destination. Move medical records.
Family & pets — kids enrolled in destination schools; pets registered at destination vet.
Social and community ties — religious affiliation, club memberships, charitable involvement transferred to destination community.
Business operations / employment — work primarily from destination; if operating a business, establish legitimate operations there. Source income to destination state where possible.
Estate planning documents — will, trusts, powers of attorney updated to destination state law.
For high-value moves, this is not a DIY situation. California and New York audit aggressive interstate moves and have lookback periods that can pull you back into their tax net for years after you think you've left. If your event is over $1M of taxable value or your departing state is CA/NY/NJ/IL, engage a CPA who specifically handles state residency planning before you sign a lease anywhere.
STAGE 5 OF 5 · YOUR PERSONALIZED COMPARISON

After-tax savings by destination

Loading...
Calculating...
—

Side-by-side breakdown

Domicile readiness score

What this analysis doesn't model

CAVEATS WORTH KNOWING
A few state-specific traps that change the math.
The state-tax rate is only one piece. Other factors that should change your destination decision and aren't fully modeled here: (1) state estate tax — Massachusetts, Oregon, Washington, and twelve others have estate tax with thresholds well below the federal exemption; (2) intangible / wealth tax — a few states tax investment assets directly; (3) trust residency rules — moving the grantor doesn't automatically move the trust's tax situs; (4) source-state taxation of certain income types even after move (deferred comp, equity granted while in old state, etc.); (5) cost-of-living and housing-cost differences which often offset some of the tax savings; (6) practical issues like proximity to family, professional networks, and weather. Use this calculator to size the dollars; use a CPA and a real-estate professional to make the decision.
THE TIMING QUESTION
For one-time events, timing the move is half the value.
The tax-saving move only works if domicile is fully established before the taxable event closes. For a business sale, that typically means 6-18 months of advance work — establishing residency, severing ties to the departing state, and building documentation. A move executed in the same calendar year as a sale, or after the sale closes, almost always loses to the source-state audit. The Liquidity Event Playbook covers the 270-day pre-sale checklist in depth, including the residency-establishment timing requirements.
FROM THE LIQUIDITY EVENT PLAYBOOK

Get the full pre-sale planning roadmap by email.

Includes: 8 planning mechanisms (state residency, QSBS, F-reorg, charitable substitution, working capital, RWI, escrow, earnout), the 270-day pre-sale checklist, and the full state-by-state tax planning matrix.

Estimates use top marginal rates for ordinary income, capital gains where applicable, and standard treatment of retirement income by state. Federal taxes are excluded (constant across states). Actual outcome depends on filing status, deductions, multi-state allocation, source-state lookback rules, and specific income classification. State estate tax, intangible/wealth taxes, and trust-level taxation are not modeled. This is an educational tool, not tax advice. For events over $1M of value, engage a CPA who handles state residency planning before executing any move.
WANT THE METHODOLOGY BEHIND THIS TOOL?
This calculator is one chapter of The Liquidity Event Playbook.
The tool gives you the answer. The guide gives you the argument — the case law, the worked examples, the negotiation playbook, the cross-check tables, the exception cases. Read the chapter and you can defend your number to a board, a buyer, an examiner, or a counterparty.
The methodology behind this calculator is in Ch 7 State Residency & Audit Defense of the reference guide.
See the Guide → Browse all 22 guides
PROFESSIONAL DISCLAIMER · PLEASE READ

Educational and informational purposes only. This calculator and any output it produces are intended solely for general educational and decision-support purposes. They do not constitute investment, tax, legal, accounting, appraisal, lending, insurance, or any other professional advice, and they do not create a fiduciary, attorney-client, accountant-client, or advisor-client relationship of any kind.

Estimates based on your inputs. All results are estimates derived from the data and assumptions you provide. Tax law, accounting standards, regulations, market conditions, and the specific facts of your situation can materially change the answer. The Baratelli Institute, its affiliates, and any co-branding professional make no warranty of accuracy, completeness, currency, or fitness for any particular purpose, and disclaim all liability for decisions made in reliance on the output.

Consult your own qualified professionals. Before acting on anything calculated here, consult your own attorney, CPA, financial advisor, appraiser, lender, or other qualified professional licensed in your jurisdiction who has reviewed your specific facts and applicable current law. The Baratelli Institute is a publisher of practitioner reference material. It is not a registered investment adviser, broker-dealer, law firm, accounting firm, appraisal firm, or lender.

Co-branded versions: If a professional advisor's name and contact information appear on this tool, that advisor has elected to make the tool available to clients as a courtesy. Inclusion of an advisor's name does not constitute the advisor's endorsement of any specific result, nor does it transfer professional responsibility for the underlying methodology to that advisor. The disclaimer above applies regardless of co-branding.