Deceased 1040 Filing When Two States Are Involved

[GeorgeTenn22]

A relative had purchased a home in Georgia in August 2022. He was in the process of moving his belongings to his new home when he passed away at his home in Tennessee in October. He had spent some of his time at the house in Georgia, but the vast majority of his belongings were still in Tennessee. So it appears that he was a part time resident in Georgia. Tennessee has no personal income tax, but Georgia does. For tax purposes, I assume I have to file for Georgia, even though he will owe no income tax as his income is tax exempt in Georgia. How do I figure out the percentages of residencies for the two states since he didn't live to the end of the year and there was overlap of residency between August and October?   

[leeloo]

You would count days. Ther is no overlap as far as the IRS is concerned. You have to pick one. If he was just in TN to pick up more belongings to take to his new home in GA, then those days don't count. He had already moved.

Things to look at are:

• Did he change his drivers licence?
• Did he change his address to new home? 

https://ttlc.intuit.com/turbotax-support/en-us/help-article/state-taxes/state-residency-status/L6IEU...

[NCperson]

you may be overcomlicating this.

obviously for federal, it doesn't matter.

for state, typically, he would be a part year resident in TN and a part year resident in GA. Did he still have his place of residence in TN? what date did he close on the house / end the lease? What date did he pass? What date did he close on the home in GA? 

What do you mean by "all his income is tax exempt in GA?" can you explain that ?  you may not be required to file GA taxes in 2022.

This is how GA treats part year residents: 

https://dor.georgia.gov/filing-requirements

Part-Year Residents

If you are a legal resident of Georgia for only a portion of the tax year and are required to file a federal income tax return, you are required to file a Georgia Form 500 Individual Income Tax Return. You must complete Schedule 3 to determine your Georgia Taxable income.

Schedule 3 partitions the income between what was earned in GA and what was earned elsewhere.  The number of days living in each state has nothing to do with the calculation.  

[GeorgeTenn22]

The Georgia house closed around mid August 2022. His lease on the residence in Tennessee expired October 15 2022. To the best of my knowledge, he had not yet applied for for a driver's license in Georgia, nor did he yet attempt to register his vehicle in Georgia. He died in his Tennessee residence one week before his lease expired. All his furniture and belongings were still at the residence in Tennessee with the possible exception of a few items possibly being at the house in Georgia. I have no direct knowledge unfortunately of what might have been in his new house.

He had not put in a change of address to the Georgia home. He had made change of address to some of his accounts directly.

His income consisted of Social Security (Georgia does not tax Social Security)  and a retirement pension. The retirement exclusion in Georgia is significantly more that what he had in pension income. His last pension payment was made in October but would have been for September earnings.

[Opus 17]

Based on the facts you present, the deceased was never a resident of Georgia. They were domiciled in Tennessee, and although they intended to change their domicile to Georgia, they never completed the change of domicile. As a result, you would not file a part year resident return, and you would not divide their income between the two states. You would file the tax return as if they were a full year resident of Tennessee only.

A person's "domicile" is their permanent home.  You can only have one domicile at a time.  There is no single factor that determines domicile, it is based on the total circumstances, but key concepts include where does the person live, where are their doctor, dentist, attorney, etc., their significant social relationships, clubs, church, etc.   It it possible to live away from the domicile for a long time without changing it, if you plan to return to it after a temporary change.  And, to change your domicile you must take active steps to establish a new domicile as well as take steps to abandon the previous domicile.