As if federal citizenship-based taxation wasn’t bad enough, on the recently updated website of the Virginia Department of Taxation, we see a blatant attempt to scare people born in Virginia into paying taxes they don’t owe, by reiterating the falsehood that an American citizen by definition must be domiciled in one of the fifty states — since of course as we all know, no one ever checks out from the Hotel California Greatest Country on Earth™ besides a few rich ingrates fleeing the estate tax:
Virginia residents who travel outside the country, or take up temporary or permanent residence abroad, should be aware of the filing provisions discussed below. If you are a Virginia resident who accepts employment in another country or moves outside the United States for other reasons (including military orders), the fact that you are living abroad does not mean that you are no longer considered a Virginia resident for tax purposes. Unless you have established residency in another state, you will still be considered a domiciliary resident of Virginia, and will be required to file Virginia income tax returns.
A domiciliary resident of Virginia is one whose legal domicile in the technical sense is in Virginia. Unless an individual acquires a legal domicile in another state, he or she is still a Virginia resident. This applies even if the person is residing in another jurisdiction and may have been residing there for a number of years. The fact that a person has been absent from Virginia, whether in the foreign service of the United States or in the exercise of private enterprise, does not in any way cancel out their Virginia citizenship or legal domicile.
