Two separate questions about where you live
New York can treat someone as a resident in more than one way. One question is domicile, the place you regard as your permanent home, and leaving New York usually requires showing that your life genuinely moved, not just your mailing address. The other is statutory residency, which turns on keeping a place to live in the state and on the number of days spent there. A person can be domiciled in Florida and still be taxed as a New York resident under that second test. The burden in these audits generally falls on the taxpayer, and New York City applies a similar analysis for city income tax.
Proof of where you were, day by day
Day counts tend to decide statutory residency cases, and auditors usually treat any part of a day spent in New York as a New York day unless an exception applies. Phone location data, credit card statements, toll and transit records, calendars, and travel bookings are the kinds of records that support or undercut a count. For domicile, auditors tend to compare where you kept the things that matter to you, how you divided your time between homes, and where your business and family ties actually were. Keep original records rather than reconstructing them later. Please hold off on preparing your own day-by-day summary until we have discussed how it will be built and used, because a summary that is not tied to underlying records usually invites more questions.
Shaping the audit early
Residency audits are document-heavy and can run for a long time, so early decisions about scope carry weight. We look at which years are under review, whether the auditor is examining domicile, statutory residency, or both, and what has already been produced. We also check whether a related issue is in play, such as how wages were allocated when a nonresident worked remotely for a New York employer. If the audit ends with an assessment you dispute, the routes include a conciliation conference or a petition to the Division of Tax Appeals. Each has a deadline that should be calendared the day a notice arrives.
