National Banks........no need to close.


Local bank or Credit Union................not a big thing to maintain.


I would close out a NY lockbox.

I don't have a lockbox but I had my credit union for 30 years and pay my bill thru it everyday. It will be a pain to enter all those recipients again.
Never need to visit the branch because most business is done thru internet. I don't know why its critical if I don't visit them and have no lockbox.

agree, that's why i said: not a big thing to maintain.

I just found this which may be helpful to the OP. It appears a NY residency audit can be onerous.What To Expect In A Residency Audit | New York Residency Audit Guide: Hodgson Russ LLP

Good point, if you get your insurance through a company/employer it’s not an issue. However, if you are retired but not yet old enough for Medicare, you have to buy your Obamacare health insurance through the state exchange that is the state of your primary residence. Unfortunately, that is our scenario. Even if we do all the usual things like spend over half our time at our Florida home, change our voter registration, drivers licenses, bank accounts, mailing address, etc...., none of it matters as long as we still buy our insurance through the Massachusetts Health Connector (the Obamacare state exchange). I am in no hurry to get any older, but one silver lining to reaching 65 will be that we can become Florida residents and still have access to our doctors in Massachusetts. We can’t wait to get the Florida homestead exemption and not pay any state income taxes!

Wow, it reminds me of the people NYC went after for maintaining an apartment in Manhattan while living in Hampton and commuting by helicopter..

Friends of mine who live outside Boca Raton went thru a NYS audit a few years ago. (He's a retired doc- very well off). They did alone but it was a paperwork hassle. They kept meticulous records of every day they spent outside NY because they knew NYS is strict on this. I can remember my friend saying No we cannot all get together on a certain date in NY because they would exceed their max number of days in NY.

Their biggest gripe was NYS would ask for certain documents, my friends would provide, then 2 months later, different docs were requested. This went on for months. Multiple requests for documents. Death by a thousand cuts. Eventually they were cleared and owed nothing (no doubt beacuse of their good record-keeping!)

As pointed out in the information contained in the link I provided NY is even tracking when and where one's cell phone is being used, toll roads driven, credit cards used and more. CA is tracking all this on an attorney I know of who moved to TX. His wife wanted to keep their home in CA so she could spend some time there. He is a high end litigator making big bucks all over the country and CA considers him still a resident and wants a piece of his entire action.

It is not just income tax. Some states want taxes from one's estate, as well, and results sometimes are not pretty. A past president of Campbell Soup ended up paying estate taxes to both PA and NJ. John Thompson Dorrance - Wikipedia

Good information, I don’t know what I hate more, how everything we do is electronically tracked, or how the irresponsible tax and spend states won’t keep their greedy hands out of our pockets.

Congrats on getting out of NY! There’s a great exodus as some people from the north east are coming to their senses. Sure the money is there, but just not worth it. Amazing to me the loyalty that many have to those states, and won’t leave. Some are choosing a better quality of life and exhausted from paying all the taxes. Enjoy!

Not really sure what you may be looking for but as far as the tax return, we sold our NY home in October 2018 and moved in with relatives in NJ until we closed on our Florida home just prior to the new year. I was still employed by NYC government until July 2019. We filed a NY return for 2018 and a partial year resident for 2019. Have not heard anything from NYS regarding an audit. However, I did hear Emperor Cuomo has said about auditing anyone who loves out of NYS for the prior 10 years, not sure that would be constitutional.

As far as paperwork in FL, just bring your NY license to FL and they will give you a FL license in about 20 minutes. For Florida homestead rebate on your taxes you can not own a home anywhere else and you must be a FL resident for a full year (Jan 1) prior to being eligible to receiving the homestead. So close on your home in December not January otherwise you have to wait another full year.

That is not true. I am retired and have government insurance through NYS as a retired employee. They can not claim you are a NY resident because you have insurance based out of NY. Primary residence is what you claim on your federal return. If you own a home in NY or NJ you are required to file a partial year return and claim how many days you reside in the state and your tax is based on that. Don’t own a home and you are not a resident.

turn in your plates when you get Fla insurance and Fla plates. A forwarding address with NY post office for your mail. Filed NY State income taxes ( Florida has no state income tax) and federal income tax in Fla ( federal is federal filed anywhere in the US). I did need my NY accountant to file NY State income tax the first partial year. After that, I got a Fla accountant. Good luck!

We moved from NY to The Villages in April of this year. We closed our ez-pass account and mailed the transponder back to NY. Yes, it will be a small expense, but felt good to cut that tie. We signed up and use SunPass which can be used in states up north. You will need to complete a form to turn in your NY plates. I used UPS and mailed my plates back along with the form. Again, you will have a small expense but it was a great feeling to close that part of my old NY life. We expect to file our final NY tax return for the first 4 months of 2020. Welcome to The Villages, clean and green!!