Are there legitimate reasons for it?
Taxes is a possibility. You might physically reside in one state but want to have a legal residence in another that has no income tax.
Yeah. I’m a student, and I know several other students that maintain residency in their old states so they can keep their cars registered there, where it’s cheaper.
It’s not impossible to get this to work if you do Business To Business work, but in general if you earn money in a state with an income tax you’re going to be paying that income tax no matter where you live.
I think the OP needs to define exactly what he means by establish residency. I own property in multiple states. Does that mean I’ve established residency in them? Or does he mean vote in one state, apply for a homestead exemption in another, register cars in a third? What exactly?
I would think that would depend on what kind of “earning money” you do. If you have wages from working for a business based in a certain state, it is hard to justify not paying income tax in that state. But if let’s say your business is internet-based, I would say you would have to pay taxes in your residency state, thus it would make sense to get residency in Texas or Florida…
IANATL. Maybe one will chime in.
On edit: if you’re audited, though, they will look at your credit card statements, bills, etc. If you claim residency in Texas, but most of your spending is in Maryland, you’re in trouble.
I used to be the other direction. I worked in a state that had a lower income tax and then had to pay the taxes owed in my state of residence in excess that I paid in my state of employment out of pocket at the end of the year. It was also a pain when I bought a car down where I worked because the dealerships closed before I could get home from work and when I registered the car had to come out of pocket for more money.
That being said I’m not sure why you would want residence in multiple states since I basically had it and my life is much simpler since I’m a one state guy.
I’m pretty sure that you can legally only claim residency in one state at a time. I believe anyone attempting to claim simultaneous residency in multiple states is attempting to defraud someone…so there couldn’t be a “legitimate” reason for it.
The BATF considers a person a resident of a state if they “are intending to make a home in that state”, so if you live part of the time in South Dakota and part of the time in Arizona you are considered a resident of both. This comes up when folks want to purchase firearms in various states, particularly handguns where there are more restrictions than on long guns. It’s all stated on the 4473 instructions.
This.
Cars registered in one state, asking someone else to put utility bills in their name in another state so they can show proof they live there, those kinds of things.
Many full time RVers live in a different state than their legal residence mainly for tax reasons. One state has low income and property taxes while another has a better climate. This is part of my own retirement plan.
Taxes. To take advantage of in-state tuition. To get the better state-controlled benefits, such as unemployment, etc.
I think if you have both a summer home and a winter home you might try to get a homestead exemption on property taxes for both homes.
A couple of cousins, residents of Tennessee, managed to obtain driver licenses from Missouri in the hopes of getting out of Tennessee traffic fines.
Yeah, they were A holes. 
Are the dozens or hundred dollars you save worth the thousands of dollars lost in out of state tuition? Exceptions exist of course, but for students who go back home for the summer, the schools want to prevent them from getting in-state tuition.
You’re assuming they attend schools where tuition varies with residency: it doesn’t in all of them.
Or that the state university doesn’t have some pretty strict standards for “residency” to avoid this very problem. I know that where I went, none of my out-of-state friends managed to fit the criteria.
This one. Like you must live in the state for over a year, be employed, not be taking classes, and not be claimed as a dependent on someone elses taxes.
When I was in college, and paying outstate tuition, I could have had a driver’s license, been registered to vote, been counted on the US census held a job and owned a house in the state where I was attending school, but I still wouldn’t have qualified for in-state tuition, without taking over 12 months off of school to just work.
This isn’t about tuition.
The couple lives in state A which does have high taxes. They came from state B and are claiming they still live there so they don’t have to register their cars in state A.
They asked the person they are living with (in state A) to change the utilities over to their names so they can use the utility bills to prove they live in state A.
I can’t imagine a legit reason why someone would want to do this.
My BIL told me that Indiana has very lax residency requirements to qualify for in-state tuition. All you have to do is own property. So just an acre would qualify.
Note that I didn’t research tis to see if it’s true because my children don’t attend school in Indiana.
In arizona your drivers license doesn’t expire until you’re 65. A lot of my family members live with me but have homes and jobs and spouses in other states that require asinine DL renewal procedures every two or three years.