A Hidden Tax Liability Linked To Voting
As states seek to overcome run-away inflation, everything is on the table...
Prescott, AZ January 31, 2024… As of the 2023 Tax Year, forty-three states impose a tax on the income of individuals, sometimes referred to as personal income tax. State income tax rates vary widely from state to state. And then there is capital gains tax as well, but I will limit the tax legal theory to just SBOs (small business owners).
The question of residence is defined in state statutes…
Voters register to vote at the county level. Still, in every state where voters are required to register to vote, and there are few exceptions, the state maintains a voter registration roll that originates at the county level. In those states, there is generally a residency requirement. In Arizona for example, Arizona Revised Statutes, A.R.S § 16- 593 addresses “Rules determining residence of voter upon challenge;” that define the residency requirement. The bulk of the law reads;
A. The election board, in determining the place of residence of a person, shall be governed by the following rules, so far as applicable:
1. The residence of a person is that place in which his habitation is fixed and to which he has the intention of returning when absent.
2. A person does not gain or lose his residence by reason of his presence at or absence from a place while employed in the service of the United States or of this state, or while engaged in navigation, or while a student at an institution of learning or while kept in an almshouse, asylum or prison.
3. A person does not lose his residence by leaving his home to go to another county, state or foreign country for merely temporary purposes, with the intention of returning.
4. A person does not gain a residence in any county into which he comes for merely temporary purposes, without the intention of making that county his home.
5. If a person removes to another state with the intention of making it his residence, he loses his residence in this state.
6. If a person removes to another state with the intention of remaining there for an indefinite time, and of making the place his present residence, he loses his residence in this state, even though he has an intention of returning at some future period.
7. The place where a person's family permanently resides is his residence, unless he is separated from his family, but if it is a place of temporary establishment for his family, or for transient purposes, it is otherwise.
8. If a person has a family residing in one place and he does business in another, the former is his place of residence, but a person having a family who has taken up his abode with the intention of remaining and whose family does not so reside with him shall be regarded as a resident where his abode has been taken.
9. A United States citizen who has never resided in the United States is eligible to vote in this state by using a federal write-in early ballot as prescribed in sections 16-103 and 16-543.02 if both of the following apply:
(a) A parent is a United States citizen.
(b) The parent is registered to vote in this state.
10. The mere intention of acquiring a new residence without the act of removal avails nothing and neither does the act of removal without the intention.
What was known as the “Poll Tax” was outlawed on January 23, 1964, because of its discriminatory nature. One of the many methods to manipulate the polity was the poll tax. Under the scheme, voters had to pay a fee in order to enter the polling places to cast their ballots. “Due to the disproportionate levels of poverty among African Americans in the Southern states, many of them – as well as poor Whites – were excluded from voting.”1 But poll taxes were not based on income per se.
What does this have to do with tax liability?
Tax liability, like voter registration is based on place of residence.
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