Our home state of Minnesota regularly shows up at the top of the list of states with the highest taxes in the USA. A few years ago, Kiplinger’s named Minnesota – not California or New York – as the country’s “Least Tax Friendly State”.
As many Minnesotans have left the state for low taxes & warm weather in Florida, many have suggested we join them. After all, we already spend most of the winter here – we’ve been sipping frosty refreshments at our Margaritaville cottage for a few weeks now.
We could pay a big chunk of the mortgage on one of these colorful cottages just on the tax savings if we lived here 6 months and 1 day of 2024. That’s how long you need to live outside MN for them to consider that you actually left. One day less and they’ll hound you for a year’s taxes.
Unfortunately, even the “time test” of living outside Minnesota is no longer enough. The MN State Department of Revenue have published 26 other factors (in addition to time outside the state) that they will investigate you on.
Their “subjective criteria” list is a bit appalling …
MINNESOTA RESIDENCY CRITERIA & TAX CONSEQUENCES
You can see there are 26 criteria that they will investigate – including how you refer to ‘home” in personal emails, which church you are a member of, and where you belong to a lodge or social club. I can understand them using car registration, voter registration, and tax forms as criteria, but the level of potential intrusion, surveillance, and assumption suggested by this list is incredibly concerning.
Last year we learned that Minnesota made it illegal for Florida developers to market to Minnesotans. Now we see they will go to even greater lengths to prevent us from paying their uncompetitive tax rates. Soon, I’m sure they will try to make a claim on our future income – unrealized investment gains – as California is doing now. Absolutely scary.
What issues (if any) have you had moving your residency from one state to another?
Image: (c) MrFireStation.com
MrFireStation 
I permanently moved to Florida two years ago, but still filing MN tax returns and likely will need to for years to come.
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Yikes. Why is that?
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Michael H. – Can you share more about why you’re having to file MN taxes 2 years after moving from MN….and “likely will need to for years to come?
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100% agree….MN continues to look for new ways to tax residents. Our MN city just passed a new local tax on top of the state taxes. As for retirees, this 2023 article ranks MN as #4 in the nation. I am starting to see a trend that states are trying to lure (or retain) retirees with more tax-friendly profiles to bolster their state’s coffers.
https://www.planadviser.com/print-page/?url=https://www.planadviser.com/a-map-shows-the-worst-states-for-taxes-in-retirement/&cid=27763#:~:text=The%20Green%20Mountain%20State%20(Vermont,could%20be%20taxed%20the%20most.
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You would think it’s hard to beat California & New York for worst taxes, but the Minnesota DFL has worked hard for that title. I’m not sure if this ranking includes the latest round of sales tax increases you mentioned.
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We moved, lock stock and barrel. 24/7/365. Had enough of CT taxing every breath of every day. Life’s better outside of one-party rule.
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Eventually, we’ll be gone from Minnesota, too.
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We have a much bigger problem that’s much harder to solve than moving out of state. It’s the United States. We are well on the road to insolvency. There’s not a retirement plan in the world that will withstand that. Only a decade until debt spiral with no answers in sight.
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Agree – Social Security & Medicare represent an unfunded liability that makes the $34T national debt look small by comparison.
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Yikes, wanting to review what you call your home in your emails is really intrusive in ones personal affairs. Trying to stop Florida developers from marketing to people in Minnesota really sounds like a First Amendment violation to me, and also sounds like interference with interstate commerce.
I also like Bowman’s comments regarding the bankrupting of the USA. Maybe we need to see if we could get Argentina’s new Prime Minister to clean up our mess if he is successful down there? Communism is running rampant in the world.
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Agree – Javier Milei is really shaking things up down there. Long overdue. I wish Trump would embrace some of his approach – like taking a chainsaw to Federal spending!
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I love the way Milei rocked the WEF. Trump because he was the target of a weaponized Federal Government will view right sizing as a chance to get rid of a lot of badness and cost.
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