How long do you have to live somewhere to be a resident for tax purposes?
It's not so much about time but about intent.  If your intent is to move there permanently, it would be when you arrive in the state for the purposes of living there (i.e. not from a while before that when you went to check a place out or for an interview).  I believe that most (if not all) states expect you to get a Driver's License from that state within 30-days of moving there. Something like a Driver's License or State ID would be proof of your residency.  These things vary greatly from state to state, so you'd have to research particular states.  Or find someone who's done that already. A bit of searching, specifically for Texas, brought me to this forum thread: If you / he wish to establish residency here -- here being Texas -- get a Texas Driver's License and Voter Registration here. Government issued ID with a Texas address is pretty much bulletproof defense against being found to be a resident of elsewhere. Your battle, if there is one, will not be with Texas, but with your present home of record state and/or local government if there are income taxes associated with having been a resident there during the tax year. Which brings up the other question: You would need to make sure that California does not have some provision that would cause you issues.  (This isn't so much a case of income from a company in the state as it about capital gains, but it is still prudent to check.) If you are going to be trying clever stuff with taxes in different place, you probably need a professional. Different countries definitely have different laws on the subject.  For example (several years ago) the UK considered you absent from the UK for tax purposes from the day you left, provided you were gone for a year, whereas Canada didn't charge you tax as long as you were not in the country for six months in the year. A carefully timed move enabled me to not pay tax at all for six months because I wasn't resident anywhere. Also it was irrelevant whether I intended to stay or not.
"By living in Sweden and having a Swedish personal identification number (personnummer), you are required to declare your entire worldwide income for tax purposes with the Swedish tax authorities, Skatteverket. It would seem to not make any difference if some of that income is kept outside of Sweden. A company that has no permanent base of operations within Sweden should not deduct any preliminary taxes for an employee that lives in Sweden. Rather, the employee should apply for ""special A tax"" (""SA"" tax status), and pay the taxes that, had the company had a permanent base of operations in Sweden, the company would have paid. The information available on the tax authority's web site in English seems limited, but the relevant page in Swedish in your situation is very likely Lön från utländska arbetsgivare utan fast driftställe i Sverige. There is a summary at Paying taxes – for individuals. Particularly do note the summary section: When staying for at least six months, you are considered as resident in Sweden for tax purposes, and are liable for taxation in Sweden on all of your worldwide income. You must also file a Swedish income tax return. Your tax return must be filed no later than May 2nd of the year after the fiscal year. as well as that: If you stay in Sweden for a continuous period of at least six months you are considered to be resident in Sweden. /.../ As a resident you are liable for taxation in Sweden on all of your worldwide income. In some cases a tax treaty with with your ordinary country of residence  may limit the Swedish taxation. /.../ For a more detailed answer, including which exact forms you need to fill out and what data is needed, I strongly recommend that you either contact Skatteverket (they are usually quite nice to deal with, and they tend to realize that everyone benefits from getting the tax paperwork and payments right from the beginning), or find an attorney specializing in Swedish tax law. They even point out themselves that (my emphasis): the practical applications of these rules are relatively complicated and for more information you can contact the Tax Information (“Skatteupplysningen”) at 0771 567 567." I have researched this question extensively in previous years as we have notoriously high taxes in California, while neighboring a state that has zero corporate income tax and personal income tax. Many have attempted pull a fast one on the California taxation authorities, the Franchise Tax Board, by incorporating in Nevada or attempting to declare full-year residence in the Silver State. This is basically just asking for an audit, however.  California religiously examines taxpayers with any evidence of having presence in California. If they deem you to be a resident in California, and they likely will based on the fact that you live in California (physical presence), you will be subject to taxation on  your worldwide income. You could incorporate in Nevada or Bangladesh, and California will still levy its taxation on any business income (Single Member LLCs are disregarded as separate corporate entities, but still taxed at ordinary income rates on the personal income tax basis). To make things worse, if California examines your Single Member LLC and finds that it is doing business in California, based on the fact that its sole owner is based in California all year long, you could feasibly end up with additional penalties for having neglected to file your LLC in California (California LLCs are considered domestic, and only file in California unless they wish to do business in other states; Nevada LLCs are considered foreign to California, requiring the owner to file a domestic LLC organization in Nevada and then a foreign LLC organization in California, which still gets hit with the minimum $800 franchise fee because it is a foreign LLC doing business in California).  Evading any filing responsibility in California is not advisable. FTB consistently researches LLCs, S-Corporations and the like to determine whether they've been organized out-of-state but still principally operated in California, thus having a tax nexus with California and the subsequent requirement to be filed in California and taxed by California. No one likes paying taxes, and no one wants to get hit with franchise fees, especially when one is starting a new venture and that minimum $800 assessment seems excessive (in other words, you could have a company that earns nothing, zero, zip, nada, and still has to pay the $800 minimum fee), but the consequences of shirking tax laws and filing requirements will make the franchise fee seem trivial in comparison.  If you're committed to living in California and desire to organize an LLC or S-Corp, you must file with the state of California, either as a domestic corporation/LLC or foreign corporation/LLC doing business in California. The only alternatives are being a sole proprietor (unincorporated), or leaving the state of California altogether. Not what you wanted to hear I'm sure, but that's the law. "In your particular condition could buy the condo with cash, then get your mortgage on your next house with ""less than 20%"" down (i.e. with mortgage insurance) but it would still be an owner occupied loan.  If you hate the mortgage insurance, you could save up and refi it when you have 20% available, including the initial down payment you made (i.e. 80% LTV ratio total).  Or perhaps during the time you live in the condo, you can save up to reach the 20% down for the new house (?).  Or perhaps you can just rent somewhere, then get into the house for 20% down, and while there save up and eventually buy a condo ""in cash"" later.  Or perhaps buy the condo for 50% down non owner occupied mortgage... IANAL, but some things that may come in handy: you don't have to occupy your second residence (owner occupied mortgage) for 60 days after closing on it.  So could purchase it at month 10 I suppose.  In terms of locking down mortgage rates, you could do that up to 3 months before that even, so I've heard.   It's not immediately clear if ""rent backs"" could extend the 60 day intent to occupy, or if so by how long (1 month might be ok, but 2? dunno) Also you could just buy one (or the other, or both) of your mortgages as a 20% down conventional ""non owner occupied"" mortgage and generate leeway there (ex: buy the home as non owner occupied, and rent it out until your year is up, though non owner occupied mortgage have worse interest rates so that's not as appealing).  Or buy one as a ""secondary residency"" mortgage?  Consult your loan officer there, they like to see like ""geographic distance"" between primary and secondary residences I've heard. If it's HUD (FHA) mortgage, the owner occupancy agreement you will sign is that you ""will continue to occupy the property as my primary residence for at least one year after the date of occupancy, unless extenuating circumstances arise which are beyond my control"" (ref), i.e. you plan on living in it for a year, so you're kind of stuck in your case.  Maybe you'd want to occupy it as quickly as possible initially to make the year up more quickly :) Apparently you can also request the lender to agree to arbitrarily rescind the owner occupancy aspect of the mortgage, half way through, though I'd imagine you need some sort of excuse to convince them.  Might not hurt to ask." "The country from which you purchase stock cannot charge you tax on either income or capital gains. Taxation is based on residency, so even when you purchase foreign stock its the tax laws of Malaysia (as your country of residence) that matter. At the time of writing, Malaysia does not levy any capital gains tax and there is no income tax charged on dividends so you won't have to declare or pay any tax on your stocks regardless of where you buy them from. The only exception to this is Dividend Withholding Tax, which is a special tax taken by the government of the country you bought the stock from before it is paid to your account. You do not need to declare this tax as it his already been taken by the time you receive your dividend. The US withholding tax rate on dividends is 30%, although this can be reduced to 15% if there as a tax treaty in place between the US and your country of residence. Malaysia does have a double taxation agreement with the US (see here: http://www.mida.gov.my/env3/index.php?page=double-taxation-agreement) but it is flagged as a ""limited"" agreement.  You'd need to find the full text of the agreement to see whether a reduced rate of dividend withholding tax would be available in the Malaysia/US treaty. See my other answer for more details on withholding taxes and how to partially reclaim under a double tax treaty: What is the dividend tax rate for UK stock Note: Although the taxation rules of both countries are similar, I am a resident of Singapore not Malaysia so I can't speak from first hand experience, but current Malaysia tax rates are easy to find online. The rest of this information is common to any non-US/UK resident investor (as long as you're not a US person)." it just depends on your situation and sometimes accounting can't fix that.  by mentor pays 35% even though he only goes back to the USA to visit. I go back less than 30 days a year so I can claim I'm a foreign resident but if all my income is in the USA I'm screwed.   I can't even route my income through my wife who has never stepped foot in the USA because we must claim whatever she makes.    US tax laws are so bad that it takes a lot just to get an account with HSBC in Hong Kong "Tax US corporate ""persons (citizens)"" under the same regime as US human persons/citizens, i.e., file/pay taxes on all income earned annually with deductions for foreign taxes paid.  Problem solved for both shareholders and governments.  [US Citizens and Resident Aliens Abroad - Filing Requirements](https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/us-citizens-and-resident-aliens-abroad-filing-requirements)  &gt;If you are a U.S. citizen or resident alien living or traveling outside the United States, **you generally are required to file income tax returns, estate tax returns, and gift tax returns and pay estimated tax in the same way as those residing in the United States.**  Thing is, we know solving this isn't the point.  It is to misdirect and talk about everything, but the actual issues, i.e., the discrepancy between tax regimes applied to persons and the massive inequality it creates in tax responsibility.  Because that would lead to the simple solutions that the populace need/crave.  My guess is most US human persons would LOVE to pay taxes only on what was left AFTER they covered their expenses." "From what you've described, your spouse is a non-resident alien for US tax purposes. You have two choices: Use the Nonresident Spouse Treated As Resident election and file as Married Filing Jointly. Since your spouse doesn't have, and doesn't currently qualify for, an SSN, he/she will need to apply for an ITIN together with the tax filing. Note that by becoming a resident alien, your spouse's worldwide income the whole year would be subject to US taxes, and would need to be reported on your joint tax filing, though he/she will be able to use the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion to exclude $100k of her foreign earned income, since he/she will have been out of the US for 330 days in a 12-month period. Or, file as Married Filing Separately. You write ""NRA"" for your spouse's SSN on your tax return. As a nonresident alien, if your spouse doesn't have any US income, he/she doesn't have to file a US tax return, and doesn't need to apply for an ITIN. Which one is better is up to you to figure out." "Nothing ""happens"" to it. It works the same way regardless of whether you are a U.S. citizen or resident or not. Taxes and penalties work the same way on withdrawal. That said, if you are not in the U.S. and don't have any income in the U.S. in a particular year in the future, you can take advantage of the fact that your U.S. tax that year will probably be zero. Then, if you withdraw a little bit, even if they count as taxable income, your U.S. income will still be so low that it may be under your personal exemption, or if not at least it will be taxed in the lowest tax bracket."