Resident State (Scrn 1) for U.S. Citizen Temporarily Living Abroad

[Karl]

Client has been a CA resident for years. Moved to HI for work 4/19/23. Then moved to New Zealand 12/1/23.

She is maintaining a residence in HI currently but is in NZ indefinitely.  HI is the mailing address she wants to list on her tax return.  But in regard to domicile, she says she considers CA "home base." Hawaii seems temporary.

So my inclination is to list CA as domicile on screen 55.011.  Feedback welcome on that.

My question is on Screen 1, what to list as resident state?  CA, HI, US or something else?  Experimenting with leaving it blank, I get diag #5636 "required to track state e-file returns."

An aside: I did consider and inquire abt FBAR. She's using TransferWise for money handling there, so everything appears domiciled in the states, so I'm fairly confident no FBAR disclosure is needed.

[BobKamman]

Both are high-bracket states.  Why is she maintaining a residence in Hawaii if she thinks her domicile is California?  Does she plan on voting next month?  Where?

Considering a location as "home base" does not mean it's your domicile.  

[Karl]

Great additional considerations on domicile, thank you, I will revisit with my client.

What would you input as resident state on Screen 1? Would it match domicile, would it be HI for her mailing address, would it be US....?

[BobKamman]

I'm not a Lacerte user, I know nothing about screens.  But you will have to do part-year returns anyway, right?  Even if she's a Hawaii nonresident.  

[Karl]

Yes, I have the partial-year returns dialed in. Lacerte has a "resident state as of 12/31" input field on the client info section and I'm stuck for what to input there. Haven't found any relevant knowledge base articles or other info about the implications of that input. Hopefully another Lacerte user will chime in.

[sjrcpa]

It's facts and circumstances.

FYI - CA won't let residency go lightly.

EDIT: "Temporarily Living Abroad' in your heading and "in NZ indefinitely" in your text are contradictory, too.

[abctax55]

Spidell (caltax) has numerous webinars on  'being a CA resident/or how to leave'. Susan is correct, CA doesn't let go easily.