Hello! I am active duty military and have been stationed OCONUS for 8 out of 12 months in 2019. For the other 4 months I didn’t live in CA at all I was on temporary orders outside of CA to go to

[DaveF1006]

i am not sure if I understand your question completely and you can reply back to my response and clarify it. I think you are asking since you did not live in California, would you need to pay tax since you didn't live there but stationed outside of the continental USA?

The short answer is "yes", if your Home of Record (HOR) is California, you do need to file a California State tax return, regardless where you are stationed. Even if your duty station is outside the US. There are two exceptions that exempt this pay from taxable income.

1) If some or all is combat pay.

2) If your HOR is in some other state than California. If so, then your military pay is not   

     taxable in CA even if you were stationed there at some point.