Tax Residency

Experience matters.

Over the past several years, more taxpayers have moved (or claimed to have moved) from New York and other high tax states than ever before. And to curb the loss of revenue from this outward migration, states have increased and expanded their audit and enforcement against these former residents. Over the past few decades, the attorneys in the Hodgson Russ Tax Residency practice have defended taxpayers in more than 10,000 residency audits in New York and other states. Through vast and unparalleled experience, Hodgson Russ’ lawyers know what it takes to win, and they have the skills, contacts, and connections to bring the most difficult audits to successful conclusions.

With this experience, our lawyers also have exactly the kind of unique and specific experience needed to guide taxpayers through the moving process, long before the audit letter comes. Our team includes not only more than a dozen experienced lawyers with decades of experience, but also three former New York tax auditors with over 50 years of combined experience working for the New York tax department. Who better to advise you on a move than tax professionals who have been through thousands of residency audits on both sides of the aisle?

Nowhere is this experience more critical than in New York, where the State Department of Taxation and Finance conducts thousands of audits every year, employing the most sophisticated and aggressive residency audit program in the nation. Hodgson Russ handles more of these New York residency audits than any law firm in the country, and our attorneys are also on the front lines on residency and nonresident income allocation issues in other states, as more and more taxpayers are fleeing high tax states like California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, etc. With states employing many of the same tests to determine a taxpayer’s residency status, Hodgson Russ lawyers bring national expertise to this state-by-state issue.

Our attorneys are also leading technological changes in this area. As special legal advisors to the technology company Topia, Tim Noonan and Mark Klein assisted in the creation of a GPS-powered smartphone app and software service called MONAEO to help taxpayers track their time spent in various locations for tax purposes. Our team of professionals, including our experienced Audit Managers, also have vast experience with cell phone technologies, which are fast becoming the primary source of data to support a taxpayer’s day-to-day location, often one of the more critical aspects of any residency or allocation case.

Hodgson Russ attorneys are also among the most influential thought-leaders on state residency and income allocation issues for high-net worth taxpayers. Indeed, while many practitioners in this area need to read books and articles to understand how these residency cases work, our attorneys have literally written the book(s) on New York residency audits. Our attorneys authored the 2018 edition of the CCH New York Residency and Audit Allocation Handbook and have published What to Expect in a Residency Audit, a comprehensive guide to every aspect of the residency audit process. What’s more, our attorneys publish dozens of articles in national publications every year covering residency issues, including “Noonan’s Notes” in Tax Notes State, and they are some of the most sought-after presenters for seminars and webinars on state residency and income allocation issues in the country.

It's no wonder, then, why Hodgson Russ lawyers have been at the center of some of the consequential and important residency cases over the past few years, including Matter of Gaied, a watershed 2014 victory in New York’s highest court that redefined the standard for taxation under New York’s statutory residency test. Many of these cases have received extensive coverage in publications such as Forbes, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. It’s also no wonder that Hodgson Russ lawyers are sought out to handle some of the most complex residency matters for the world’s wealthiest taxpayers, including representation of more than 50 of the billionaires on the 2023 “Forbes Guide to the World’s Richest People.”

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