I moved from PA to NM last year. From PA's perspective, PA remains your domicile until you take steps to permanently establish a new residence somewhere else. Other states may or may not take the same position.
Those steps include, but are not limited to: buying/renting property as a primary residence, registering a car, registering to vote.
South Dakota lets you establish tax domicile with no state income tax instantly. You need to show a receipt from a hotel or campground that you spent a night in the state. You also get a new driver's license and open a bank account. That's it. What stops me from setting up a remote workstation in SD, logging into work through VPN from there, and living wherever I want? :)
Once the pandemic lessens, I am switching my domicile from California to SD and semi-retiring away from Bay Area. I will have a legal presence and a computer in that area, but I will not live there.
There could be a business opportunity in setting up remote workstations in high rent areas to comply with these requirements.
Multiple states can consider you to be domiciled there, and you are liable for state taxes in each.
There is no constitutional protection that prevents you from having to pay multiple resident state taxes, though in practice, it doesn't happen often. NY is notorious for claiming people are still residents after they have left-one factor is spending any part of 183 days in state, but another is intent and emotional attachment.
Typically when you live in another state for 3 or more months you “establish residency”. Not declaring this properly on your state income taxes is tax evasion.
Lying to your company about residency and tax evasion to receive more money is fraud.
So it sounds like you’re going to have an interesting time either committing fraud or flying back and forth constantly to pull this off?
I bet if you were hired by a company while living in a lower COL city for market rates in that city, and then moved to the Bay area you’d be advocating for getting a COL adjustment to afford Bay area rents.
Considering fraud and tax evasion schemes to avoid the exact same adjustment in the other direction is ridiculous and selfish. If everyone did what you did housing rates would skyrocket in those cities like the Bay area and create even more housing crisis and displacement.
