Loading
A new planning feature by a mobile app makes tax estimating and seasonal residency two birds of a feather.
The app, TaxBird, helps snowbirds determine if their plans for 2019 would result in overstaying in their second home states for state tax purposes. That’s particularly important now, given the new federal tax law restricts how much taxpayers can deduct in state and local income, sales and property taxes.
Naples-based ware2now, owned by partners Jim Simon and Brian Ochs, developed TaxBird.
The new feature on the TaxBird app lets users enter how many days they plan to stay in a higher-tax state in the calendar year ahead. A toggle on the dashboard lets taxpayers see their projected day counts for actual stays combined with their plan throughout the year — alerting them if they come close to overstaying in any state.
“TaxBird’s new planning tool can help residents of high-tax states such as Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York decide whether to establish residency in Florida, Nevada or Texas where there is no state income tax,” says Simon in a statement.
Once downloaded to a smartphone, the app runs in the background using the phone’s location service and sends alerts as state thresholds near. At tax time, it generates a report that provides verification of a taxpayer’s whereabouts throughout the tax year.
Simon and Ochs introduced TaxBird in 2017 after Simon sought a better solution than a spreadsheet program to keep track of the time he spent at his homes in Naples and Westport, Conn., where the state tax rate is as high as 6.99%. They had previously founded Spire, a data marketing and analytics company focused on grocery retailers and consumer packaged goods, which the duo sold in 2014 to Datalogix. It was acquired a year later by Oracle.
TaxBird is available from iTunes and at taxbird.com. After a free 30-day trial, a subscription costs $19.99 annually.
Your free article limit has been reached this month.
Subscribe now for unlimited digital access to our award-winning business news.
Join thousands of executives who rely on us for insights spanning Tampa Bay to Naples.
