I am in the “every penny counts” group…but I can’t imagine partying about this for a $500 dependent tax credit.
I don’t think many states are as uptight as Utah in requiring that “you have the intention of making your residence here permanent or indefinite” in order to register to vote. That seems like a requirement deliberately designed to keep college students from voting.
Many, perhaps most college students have no idea where they’ll end up after college. They’ll go where the jobs are, or otherwise chase their dreams, whether through further education or whatever else draws them. They’re at school temporarily. Under the circumstances it’s perfectly appropriate for the IRS to say their parents can count them as living with the parents while temporarily away at school—even though most students have no intention of returning to their parents’ home “permanently or indefinitely” when they finish school. At the same time, it’s perfectly appropriate for the states and cities where they’re attending school to say, “OK, we know it’s only temporary, but you are residing here, and that’s good enough for us, so you’re welcome to vote here.” I haven’t done a survey, but my impression is that far more states take that laissez-faire approach than Utah’s exclusionary approach.
My state, Minnesota, takes a very pragmatic approach. According to the Minnesota Secretary of State, you’re eligible to vote if you’re a U.S. citizen age 18 or older, and a resident of Minnesota for at least 20 days prior to the election. “Resident” for this purpose means “voting residence,” which the Secretary of State explains this way:
No “permanent or indefinite” requirement, just a purely subjective, in-the-moment standard. I don’t see any incompatibility between a student deciding they’re a current Minnesota resident for voting purposes under that standard, and their parents declaring them a dependent living at home while temporarily away at (“residing at”) their college town while pursuing an education, as allowed by the IRS rules.
My experience is that the “permanent or indefinite” language is not unusual. And no, I don’t believe it’s designed to deliberately keep college students form voting. It’s probably designed to make sure that those registering to vote are sincere about their connection to the place about which they will have a say.
RE: Minnesota residency.
-To register to vote in Minnesota, you must have been a resident of Minnesota for at least 20 days.
https://www.sos.state.mn.us/elections-voting/register-to-vote/
-To become a resident of Minnesota, you must not maintain a home elsewhere.
Also:
*“Domicile” is the place you intend to make your home permanently or for an indefinite period of time.
Once you establish your domicile in Minnesota, it continues until you take actions to change it. If you move out of Minnesota, but do not intend to permanently remain in another state or country, you continue to be a Minnesota resident.*
https://www.revenue.state.mn.us/individuals/individ_income/Pages/Domicile.aspx
-While you can have a driver’s license from another state at the time you register to vote, you must apply for a Minnesota driver’s license within 60 days of becoming a Minnesota resident.
https://dps.mn.gov/divisions/dvs/forms-documents/Documents/NewResident.pdf
@bclintonk But the FAQ you quoted also says “You cannot vote in Minnesota if you are only living here temporarily. However, you can still vote in your home state’s election with an absentee ballot.” https://www.sos.state.mn.us/elections-voting/register-to-vote/i-m-living-temporarily-in-minnesota/
By definition you must therefore regard yourself as living in Minnesota permanently or indefinitely. And therefore you are not temporarily away from your parents’ state. Now maybe you could say just before the election I’ve decided to stay in MN permanently and change your mind afterwards (so you are then temporarily away from home for 6 months of the year), but in the real world that just doesn’t happen.
Minnesota code (https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/200.031) defines residency for the purposes of elections in almost the same way as Utah, as follows:
“(1) The residence of an individual is in the precinct where the individual’s home is located, from which the individual has no present intention of moving, and to which, whenever the individual is absent, the individual intends to return.”
“Home” is essentially the same thing as domicile (see below), although tax domicile is determined by Minnesota on a balance of multiple considerations (not just voting) and “casting an illegal vote does not establish domicile for income tax purposes”(https://www.revisor.mn.gov/rules/8001.0300/#rule.8001.0300.3)
“The term “domicile” means the bodily presence of an individual person in a place coupled with an intent to make such a place one’s home. The domicile of any person is that place in which that person’s habitation is fixed, without any present intentions of removal therefrom, and to which, whenever absent, that person intends to return.”
So one might conclude that the use of the phrase “you consider home” by Minnesota officials is to some extent (wittingly or unwittingly) encouraging students to vote illegally… But at least they might not have to pay Minnesota taxes if they do.
I would guess that most states have similar wording. Indeed, according to The Hill: “New Hampshire is the only U.S. state that does not require registered voters to be permanent residents in order to cast a ballot.”
A real stretch here, bc. Nothing is stopping a college student from requesting an absentee ballot from ‘home’. IMO, its more to keep the voting down to those who have a domicile in the locale.
As an example, rural towns with a college can have the city council over-run by college kids voting. Hanover, NH is one example, and they made it really easy as you could register/vote same day. However, the state recently changed the law:
My city mailed my daughter (at her request) an absentee ballot. She mailed it back at the school mail room and was given a I voted sticker. Between absentee ballot and early voting I think it has become easier to vote in your town. I know for my daughter she knows a lot more about local politics in our hometown then she does about local politics in her college town.
@momtogirls2 That’s what my D did at college and it worked fine. She didn’t apply to become a resident of her college state, seemed like too much work…
I am intrigued to see that in HR1 (the bill that’s being debated by the House of Representatives, at https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/1/text#toc-H7017B4835A9D4225B2A92572432A38B9), Section 1901(d) states “It is the sense of Congress that, as provided under existing law, students who attend an institution of higher education and reside in the jurisdiction of the institution while attending the institution should have the option of registering to vote in elections for Federal office in that jurisdiction or in the jurisdiction of their own domicile.”
In particular, does anyone know how it is “provided under existing law” that students can register to vote at college without changing their domicile? Isn’t that a matter for individual states to determine (maybe they are just referring to the law in NH as noted by @bluebayou)? (Of course one might regard “the sense of Congress” as an oxymoron)
I am so grateful for this discussion. Kid 2 is going to Iowa, and I am excited that she’ll be able to participate in the caucus. I checked http://campusvoteproject.org/iowa/ which detailed the information for that state, and the secretary of states office was also a good reference.
@DoinResearch And what did you conclude? The link you gave states “Being registered to vote at a different address from your parents does not prevent them from claiming you as a dependent on their taxes” but indicates that it “should not be used as a substitute for consultation with a licensed Iowa legal professional”.
To register to vote you must be a resident of Iowa (https://sos.iowa.gov/elections/voterinformation/voterregistration.html). Also by registering to vote and maintaining a place of residence in Iowa (i.e. living at school), you are creating a “rebuttable presumption that an individual is domiciled in Iowa” and would then also be a resident for tax purposes (https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/iac/rule/11-02-2011.701.38.17.pdf). It seems to me that Campus Vote Project is simply aiming to encourage students to vote at school without any consideration of the legal and tax consequences of that choice.
Correct. It’s that ‘laboratories of democracy’ thingy. As long as the states don’t try to promulgate rules that disenfranchise folks, they set the rules.
Federal law is that you can vote where you are a resident, and for VOTING purposes, you can only have one residence.
States then determine what is required for residency. If ‘someone’ thinks the residency requirement is too strict, then a federal court will decide. You must be a resident to register to vote, but the state determines what that mean. 30 days, 90 days, register on election day, register 30 days before…all have been held to be valid. The 90 days I think applies to primaries held by the individual parties since they can make their own rules since it is a semi-private group.
@ BelknapPoint, If “permanent or indefinite” intent is what defines residency, then I would venture to guess that most non-commuting college students don’t reside with their parents. When I went away to college, I certainly had no intention of making my parents’ home my permanent or indefinite residence. No ill feeling toward my parents, who I loved dearly and returned to visit often, but returning to live with them after college would have felt like utter failure of my life plans. And when my daughters flew the nest to attend college, they both felt the same way.
And let’s not confuse the issue by throwing in definitions of the term “domicile,” or definitions of “resident” in various other, unrelated state statutes. “Domicile” and “residence” aren’t coextensive. “Domicile” is used mostly for determining where an estate is probated, whether state estate taxes are owed, and certain other legal purposes. As the legal dictionaries explain, that’s not necessarily the same as “residence.” Broadly speaking, “domicile” means the place where a person resides with the intention to make it his/her permanent home, while “residence” means the place where one lives currently. “Domicile” has two elements, residence plus intent, while residence is an objective fact. One may have multiple residences but only one domicile.
States may define “residence” or “resident” more narrowly or more broadly for certain purposes, but these definitions often differ and are often incompatible even within the same state. Various state statutes define who is a “resident” for purposes of resident v. non-resident income taxes; for drivers license or motor vehicle registration requirements; for eligibility for state-provided welfare benefits; for eligibility for voting; and for purposes of determining resident v. non-resident tuition at public colleges and universities. But it’s entirely possible to be a resident under one of these definitions, and not under others. For example, the Minnesota Department of Human Services says you can’t be a Minnesota resident if you maintain a home in another state, and you lose residency if you’re absent from the state for more than a month, unless the absence is due to illness or hospitalization. But there’s no way the Minnesota Department of Revenue is going to let you avoid resident income taxes simply by virtue of owning a second home in Florida and spending more than a month there. Appealing to the definitions of residency in wholly unrelated statutes just confuses the issue.
In much the same way, what the IRS considers a student "living with " their parents while away at college, and who the state considers a “resident” for voting purposes, have nothing to do with each other. For federal income tax purposes, the IRS can consider Junior to be “living with” Mom and Pop back in North Dakota while attending the University of Minnesota, while at the same time for voting purposes Minnesota considers Junior to be a Minnesota resident because Junior has lived in his current apartment for more than 20 days and considers that apartment to be his current home.
If your parents’ home was your legal residence on the day that you left home to go to college as a non-commuting student, it remained your legal residence until you formed an intent and took an affirmative action to establish legal residence somewhere else. If there is no new intent or affirmative action taken, nothing changes.
Regarding Minnesota and the talk about different definitions and uses of the terms residency and domicile, the link previously provided by Twoin18, post #43, is instructive and may clear up some of your confusion.
https://www.revisor.mn.gov/rules/8001.0300/#rule.8001.0300.3
I disagree. The link may not be direct and the consequences of changing a state of legal residence may not be understood or intended at the time the action is taken, but the connection is definitely there.
"In much the same way, what the IRS considers a student “living with " their parents while away at college, and who the state considers a “resident” for voting purposes, have nothing to do with each other.”
I wouldn’t say they have “nothing to do with each other”. If registering to vote determines that you are domiciled there for state (or local) income tax purposes (i.e. the student must then pay state income taxes as a resident), it is hard to argue that shouldn’t carry over to your parents’ state and federal tax status. After all, the parents’ and student’s tax return are entangled in all sorts of other ways (because the student may remain a dependent for certain education and other credits even if he/she is not living with the parents).
So there may be situations where registering to vote is not dispositive (or does not creates a “rebuttable presumption” as in Iowa) of the student being domiciled in the state for income tax purposes, but they appear to be rare.
Haven’t read this entire thread, but I will point out that the IRS isn’t woefully understaffed. Billions of dollars in unpaid taxes get waived by our government because they don’t have the resources or interests in pursuing their collection. I can’t imagine that they would be interested in going after someone for falsely claiming this deduction (if indeed the deduction does become inapplicable upon voter registration), but perhaps they do care more about what the average Joe owes, than the average president.
No question that the IRS is understaffed (I think that’s what you meant), and that there are plenty of returns filed that are incorrect and no action is ever taken. But I think OP is asking what certain requirements are under the Internal Revenue Code and IRS regulations; not what he can get away with.
Not necessarily. Virginia clearly uses intent for residence and domicile. (The latter is big for instate tuition.)
Sorry, bc, but you are trying to clarify a state jumble of inconsistencies. For example the Virginia SoS also says a dorm room counts for a residential address. Well, that obviously conflicts with the ‘intent to stay for an unlimited time’ period bolded above since college students must move out of dorms in May/June, so at best their intent is only for the next term…And I’m guessing that if you dug into the actual state laws of MN, you’ll find similar discrepancies.
https://www.elections.virginia.gov/registration/college-student-info/index.html
Many college students live in apartments, not dorms. (Even my daughter, who spent 4 years in University housing, spent only one in a building physically located on the college campus – the others were off-campus apartment buildings owned or leased by the university).
But living in a specific location isn’t relevant for determining residence for voting purposes in any case. If a student or adult moves from one apartment to another in the same city, their status as a resident of that city hasn’t changed. People who are mobile are still entitled to vote; even homeless people have the right to vote – it just gets trickier for them to register.
Just to clarify, the administrative rule you reference here is an administrative rule of the Minnesota Department of Revenue for income tax purposes only, and it very clearly says that for tax purposes, a “resident” is either a person who is domiciled in Minnesota, or a person “who is not domiciled in Minnesota but maintains a place of abode in Minnesota and spends in the aggregate more than one-half the taxable year in Minnesota.” It goes on to say: “A person may be a resident of Minnesota for income tax purposes, and taxable as a resident, even though the person is not deemed a resident for other purposes.” It then goes on to a lengthy discussion of factors that go into determining whether a person is “domiciled” in Minnesota, but quite clearly that is not coextensive with being a “resident” for tax purposes or for other purposes.
By that definition, any out-of-state student who earns any money in Minnesota (even from a college work-study job), has a dorm room or apartment here, and is physically present in the state for 183 days or more in a calendar year, is a Minnesota resident for state income tax purposes. That doesn’t mean she’s a Minnesota domiciliary, or a Minnesota resident for tuition purposes, or for voting purposes, or anything else. It also doesn’t mean she isn’t deemed to be “living with” her parents for purposes of their federal income taxes. Again, these are separate statutes, and the definitions and rules vary on who is a resident for different purposes. I’m not the one who is trying to conflate all these definitions.
I have no doubt that some states say you need to be domiciled in the state to be eligible to vote. Others don’t.