The U.S. Supreme Court recently issued a unanimous decision in North Carolina Dept. of Revenue v. The Kimberley Rice Kaestner 1992 Family Trust, ruling that residence in a state is not a sufficient reason to tax an out-of-state trust’s undistributed income. Justice Sonia Sotomayer delivered the opinion, explaining the Court’s two-step analysis of the case in regards to the 14th Amendment on due process. The judges considered that there must be “some definite link, some minimum connection, between a state and the person, property or transaction it seeks to tax” and that the “income attributed to the State for tax purposes must be rationally related to ‘values connected with the taxing State.'” In this instance, “the presence of in-state beneficiaries alone does not empower a State to tax trust income that has not been distributed to the beneficiaries where the beneficiaries have no right to demand that income and are uncertain ever to receive it.”
This is a win for those taxpayers who have assets in multiple states.
To read the opinion in full, click here.
