My wife and I are moving from Maryland to Nevada next month for her new job. However, and I think this will be important, we will be keeping our house here in Maryland for at least a year, maybe more, and renting it out to family friends while we’re away. We will come home and live in it for holidays and occasional visits. (We’re not renting the master bedroom.)
I’ve never lived outside the state of Maryland, so I have no idea of what we need to do to make the transition official with all the various agencies and companies that we deal with. The ones I’ve been wondering about specifically are the motor vehicle dept. and the tax dept.
Regarding the car, do we have to register it in Nevada, or can we keep the Maryland tags? Is there a time limit for holding onto the MD tags?
Regarding taxes, fortunately, Nevada has no state income tax, thanks to the casinos, and my reading of the Maryland tax office Web site suggests that as long as we live in Maryland for less than 183 days, we won’t owe taxes there, either. We will leave MD before the end of June, so we’ve got that covered, but we plan to come back a few times before the end of the year. Will those days count?
Do we have to officially declare a primary place of residence? If so, how? If we keep the car registered in MD, will the tax dept see that as evidence that our residence is still in MD, despite our being in NV for most of the year?
What else should I prepare to do in moving from one state to another?
I’m not a CPA but I’ve lived in lots of states and own property in multiple states.
I register my cars in the state with the lowest fees and no inspections where I have a legal address.
If you earned any income in MD (e.g. you worked at an office in MD) you’re going to pay taxes on that to MD no matter where you’re living at the time or for the majority of the year.
The only time I’ve ever had to declare a primary place of residency was when I was living in a state that gave you a property tax break on your primary place of residency (Florida). Other than that I’ve never had to tell anyone which property I considered my primary residence.
With regards to vehicles, if it gets noticed with Maryland plates for long enough in the state of Nevada, they are going to issue you a fine. If you get pulled over once and say, “Well my primary residence is in Maryland” the police officer will probably kindly ask you how long the car has been in Nevada, and explain to you that a vehicle can only remain in Nevada unregistered to that great state for X days, or something like that. The next time you get pulled over, it’ll probably be in their system that you were warned, and then you’ll be in trouble. This is not quite a WAG but I’m not an expert either.
As far as the taxes are concerned… you’ll pay Maryland state income tax for any income you earned in Maryland in 2013, but none of the wages earned in Nevada will be seen or cared about by the state of Maryland, as far as I am aware. My sister moved from Oregon to Texas (as did I), and this is how it worked between those states. If the law in Maryland is really that you owe 0% state tax as long as you only lived/worked in Maryland for less than 183 days in a year, then perhaps you will be eligible for a big state tax refund for all the state-taxes you have been paying so far this year (but I highly doubt that’s the case).
As far as your car registration being seen by whoever as tax liability, I highly doubt it. But I have no idea.
My question is, why wouldn’t you?
I believe it is cheaper here than in most states.
BTW, Nevada has no state tax, so claiming residence here might save you a bundle when it comes to filing taxes!
You might need to check up on a few things…for instance, when we moved to NV from California, we needed a letter from the California electric company stating we were in good standing - this avoided us having to pay a rather hefty deposit to the NV Power company.
You might want to check out the info from this site as well.
Dmark: thanks for the link to the Nevada DMV. I was going to Google that, but got distracted.
So according to that, we apparently have to hand in our MD driver’s licenses when we get NV licenses? Is that right? Is it generally the case that states don’t let you have driver’s licenses in another state. What if you spend half your time in one state and half in another? Wouldn’t it be more convenient to have one for each?
I don’t think there are any actual laws against having driver’s licenses from more than one state but I do think it’s pretty common to have to turn in the State A license to get the State B license without testing. Doesn’t mean you can’t keep the State A license and start the whole process over again in State B. Although I don’t understand the convenience of having multiple licenses.
This was pointed out to me yesterday, as I an unobservant: all my neighbors have WAAAAY expired plates, like '09, '05, even '01 :eek:. On the otherhand, I got a ticket in September 2011, despite that my tags says 09-11, but they somehow pulled me over for that any way. I also know many people who don’t change their tags within 30 days. But the right way is relatively painless. Also, you could make the case that you are still a MD resident, but that lowers your tax claims as you note. You will need insurance in NV before you can do anything with the DMV. Then you drive up to this window usually, and they inspect your car before you go inside.
Tax thing: I would consult an accountant. Multi-state can be tricky. Not registering you car could be construed as dodging taxes. For sales tax, I know that the state authorities can catch you on sales taxes if you purposely register in a lower taxed state but live in another. NV has semi-high sales taxes, but I will guess that MD is probably higher.
Regarding holding onto your old house. You might be subject to a capital gains tax if you don’t do things right. There’s a hefty deduction and several qualifications, but the big one is that it has to have been your primary residence for 2 out of the previous 5 years before selling. Check with the IRS rules.
I don’t know exactly, but it seems to me that you’d get treated better by a Maryland cop who’s pulled you over if you show a Maryland license. I just have a gut feeling about that. Maybe I’m full of shit. (It wouldn’t be the first time.)
ftg: thanks for pointing that out. So we have to sell before June of 2016 to take the exclusion. We probably will (or will come back to MD), but it’s good to know that.
I think laws that you only have 30 days to get new driver’s licenses and tags when you move to a new state are probably ignored by most people–that they simply get new ones when their old ones expire.
I started poking around the laws of different states and honestly I think it may be impossible to simultaneously obey the laws of various states. I discovered I happen to work in multiple states each of which has a law that says if I work in that state I’m required to immediately register my car and get a driver’s license there.
In practice as long as my drivers license is from the same state as the license on the car I’ve never had anyone hassle me about the fact that I’m currently living in a different state than where I’ve registered the vehicle.
Nice thing about Nevada is there are no vehicle safety inspections to worry about and only 2 counties require SMOG testing (Washoe and Clark). The DMV is easy to work with and registration and renewals are a snap. You can drive whatever the hell you want out here!
If you are living/working out here, I would make the change and become a Nevada citizen for tax purposes. I don’t know anything about Maryland, but the “red tape” in Nevada has* got to be* less.
I am going to bet a good amount of money that the OP is moving to Washoe or Clark. Red tape will be almost certainly less than MD. One change I noticed from CA–>NV is that in CA, smog checks are more expensive, but last you two years instead of one.
Black Rock City almost certainly doesn’t have smog though, and some of those cars might need it.
Post #8is important. Also to note, you can’t do it if you sold another home recently. If you decide to rent it out in the meantime, read up on what that entails. Especially IRS Pub 523, and maybe 527, 530.
As others have said, registering your vehicle(s) and getting DL in Nevada is easy and cheap. Even the smog fee is cheap ($20-25 depending on where you go).
And yeah, pronouncing the state name correctly will get you lots of positive karma.
Check them again- I’ve seen a few where that only applies to people who actually live there but wouldn’t be considered residents if they didn’t work. I remember one state didn’t consider you a resident for the purposes of driver’s licenses or registration if you lived there less than 6 continuous months or during the school year while attending college unless you also either had a job or applied for the resident tuition rate at a a public college.
Nevada might be unique, in that you can plate your car in Nevada without transferring the title. to Nevada. There might be reasons for you to want to do that.
Might depend on who’s listed as “Owner” on the title. I’ve got a few cars with out-of-state titles where I’m listed as owner in the other state. Nevada let me keep those titles, and I just registered them. All the other cars I’ve registered have had titles in someone else name, and I have to pay a $20 fee for a new title in my name when I register them. (Except that one where I think they messed up! )
Still, easy-peasy! Nevada rocks!
Also: One year, a while back, there was a budget surplus. So, how did they decide to distribute it to the people? Well, they sent checks to everyone who had a vehicle registered! Hell, I MADE money that year!
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