I never filed a part-year return after leaving the state, what now?
The year stays open, and with no return on the record the state's starting assumption is that you never left. That matters more than the charge for the delay. The missing document is the one that would have fixed the date, so the argument you will be having is about residence for several later years rather than about one late filing. The order of work is to establish the departure date from what still exists, filing the departing year on that date, and only then to deal with the state's charge for lateness, which is computed on its own schedule and differs from the federal one.
The state says I am still a resident years after I left, what do I do?
Answer with the date and the evidence for it rather than with the fact of having moved. A state pressing this point has usually seen no departing return and is relying on a tie, most often a home kept in its territory. Deal with the tie explicitly: say what happened to it and when, and show what was taken on elsewhere in its place. Then file the years the state can still reach, on one consistent departure date. Filings that imply different dates in different years are what turn a residence question into a long examination.
How far back can a state assess me if I never filed?
Further than if you had filed. In most states the assessment period runs from the filing of a return, so where nothing was filed it has generally not started. That is why an old year can be raised long after the event, and why an unfiled departing year keeps a chain of later years alive as well. Coming forward first sometimes caps it, because where a state runs its own disclosure arrangement a fixed look-back is often the term on offer, and it closes once the state has written to you. The cap is a reason to move before the letter arrives.
Can I still prove I left the state if I filed nothing at the time?
Usually, but the file has to be rebuilt and it will be thinner than one kept at the time. What tends to survive is documentary and dated: a tenancy or a sale on the old home, an employment contract abroad, school enrolments, travel records, card and phone data placing you elsewhere. What tends not to survive is the everyday detail that makes a day count precise. So the position is put on the documents that remain, and the date is chosen to be defensible on those documents, which sometimes means a later date than the one the filer has in mind.
Do I file a departing year return with no state tax to pay?
Yes, and the reason is not the tax. The departing return is the document that states the date you ceased to be a resident, and it sets the state's assessment clock running for that year. Without it the state has no record of the change and no year to work from, so its questions start later and reach further back. A nil year is also the cheapest year to file, because in the states whose charge for lateness follows the tax shown there is nothing for that charge to be calculated on.
Do I file in both the state I left and the one I moved to?
If both tax income and you were a resident of each for part of the year, then generally yes, and the two returns have to agree about the date. Each state reads the other's filing, and a date that differs between them invites both to claim the overlap. Where the move was abroad rather than to another state, only one part-year return arises, but the same discipline applies to the date. We prepare the pair together for that reason, from one day record, rather than one at a time and months apart.
What is the US exit tax?
A charge that applies when a US citizen renounces or a long-term permanent resident gives up their status and meets one of the covered-expatriate tests — an income test, a net-worth test, or a failure to certify five years of compliance. A covered expatriate is treated as having sold worldwide assets on the day before expatriation, and Form 8854 is what reports the position. The tests turn on figures that are indexed, so they are read for the year of expatriation. See Form 8854.
Does my foreign spouse have to pay US tax?
Not unless something connects them to the US system: they are a citizen or green card holder, they meet the substantial presence test, they have US-source income, or you elect to treat them as a US resident so you can file jointly. That election is the one people make without weighing it, because it reaches their foreign salary, their foreign investments and their foreign accounts, not just their name on the form. See a US person with a non-resident spouse.
