Cunningham v. Testa, Slip Opinion No. 2015-2744 (July 8, 2015)

Recently, the Supreme Court of Ohio issued an opinion in Cunningham v. Testa which significantly alters the application of a statute for determining non-Ohio domicile for state tax purposes. Prior to the ruling, the statute seemed to set forth two factors which, when verified, would create an irrebuttable presumption of non-residency for state income tax purposes:

  1. too few contact periods; and
  2. an abode outside of Ohio.

Following this ruling, a taxpayer may now be forced to prove sufficient additional facts to show that he would legally be considered domiciled outside the state. The change represents a partial reversion back to a prior structure which existed at common law, a structure which was amended over 20 years ago due to its complexities. The case of Cunningham v. Testa casts serious doubt on the future validity of any bright-line test for determining Ohio domicile and will create uncertainty for taxpayers in the coming years.

Background
The taxpayer, Kent Cunningham, owned homes in both Ohio and Tennessee for the entirety of the 2008 tax year. Also, Cunningham undisputedly had fewer than 182 contact periods with the state of Ohio for that year. He filed a Form IT-DA, an “Affidavit of Non-Ohio Domicile,” for the 2008 tax year. In the affidavit, he declared that he “was not domiciled in Ohio at any time during taxable year 2008” and affirmed that he “had fewer than 183 contact periods in Ohio during the taxable year.”

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