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Alabama · moving out

Leaving Alabama: how to cleanly break residency before a liquidity event

Alabama residency audits are real, especially in the year of a large equity sale. Domicile factors, workday sourcing for trailing grants, and the minimum-stay counter-claim from your destination state.

What Alabama residents actually pay

Alabama taxes ordinary income at a top marginal rate of 5%. RSU settlement value, NSO exercise spread, and ESPP discount income all count as ordinary wages for this purpose and flow through the state's normal brackets.

No state-level AMT conformity; RSU income taxed as wages.

Establishing the break

Leaving Alabama cleanly for tax purposes means proving you changed domicile, not just changed address. Domicile audits look at: where you vote, where you hold your driver's license, where your doctors and dentist are, where your family lives, where you spend holidays, whether you sold (or stopped using) your Alabama residence.

Trailing-grant rules

Even after a clean break, most high-tax states claim a workday-sourced share of equity that vested after you moved but was earned while you were a resident. Plan the move timing around known vesting and exercise events; moving in January before a year of vesting is cleaner than moving in June mid-vest.

Records to keep

Three years of records, minimum. Calendar (for day-count defense), payroll history (showing work location each pay period), real estate transactions, travel receipts, medical and professional records. If audited, the burden is on you to prove the new residency.

Frequently asked

Does Alabama tax RSU income the same as wages?
Yes. Alabama treats RSU ordinary income as wages, taxable at the state's top marginal rate of 5%. Supplemental-wage federal withholding (22%, or 37% above $1M YTD) does not adjust for state withholding, so you often owe extra at filing.
What happens if I exercise ISOs while living in Alabama?
Alabama does not run a separate state AMT, so only federal AMT applies. You still need to model the bargain element carefully if you plan a cashless exercise-and-sell.
I moved to Alabama from another state. Who taxes my vesting RSUs?
Most high-tax states (CA, NY, MA) source RSU ordinary income to workdays between grant and vest. If your grant pre-dates your Alabama move, expect the old state to tax the portion of each tranche attributable to workdays earned there. Alabama taxes the remainder.
Can I reduce Alabama taxes by timing my RSU sales?
Alabama taxes long-term capital gains at the same rate as ordinary income, so timing alone does not produce a state savings — only federal. Holding for 12 months still halves the federal rate on gains above basis.

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