Official list of community property states

[MattH]

From the Internal Revenue Service website:

Community property states are Arizona, California, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin.

I've seen this list on many unofficial websites, I merely post this here because it's official, I found it by typing community property states site:irs.gov into Google.  Of course my posting here is also unofficial, so you should do that Google search yourself, you should not trust what I or anybody else has to say on an Internet discussion board without taking the trouble to verify the information for yourself.

Also, according to http://www.irs.gov/irm/part25/ch13s01.html

Alaska has a community property election that may be made in writing.

There is much much more information in this IRS document.

And here is a table summarizing differences among the community property states:

http://www.irs.gov/irm/part25/ch13s01.html#d0e107879

Note that when State and Federal laws are in conflict things can get extremely interesting, and community property is an area where such conflicts can occur.  Take a close look at the following US Supreme Court decision to see just how messy this sort of thing can become!

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/96-79.ZS.html

Message Edited by MattH on 02-22-2009 09:22 AM

[MattH]

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@MattH wrote:

From the Internal Revenue Service website:

Community property states are Arizona, California, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin.

I've seen this list on many unofficial websites, I merely post this here because it's official, I found it by typing community property states site:irs.gov into Google.  Of course my posting here is also unofficial, so you should do that Google search yourself, you should not trust what I or anybody else has to say on an Internet discussion board without taking the trouble to verify the information for yourself.

Also, according to http://www.irs.gov/irm/part25/ch13s01.html

Alaska has a community property election that may be made in writing.

There is much much more information in this IRS document.

And here is a table summarizing differences among the community property states:

http://www.irs.gov/irm/part25/ch13s01.html#d0e107879

Note that when State and Federal laws are in conflict things can get extremely interesting, and community property is an area where such conflicts can occur.  Take a close look at the following US Supreme Court decision to see just how messy this sort of thing can become!

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/96-79.ZS.html

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It gets still more complicated, see THIS recent Supreme Court decision:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/pdf/00-1831P.ZO

Whether the interests of respondent's husband in the property he held as a tenant by the entirety constitutes "property and rights to property" for the purposes of the federal tax lien statute, 26 U. S. C. §6321, is ultimately a question of federal law. The answer to this federal question, however, largely depends upon state law. The federal tax lien statute itself "creates no property rights but merely attaches consequences, federally defined, to rights created under state law." United States v. Bess, 357 U. S. 51, 55 (1958); see also United States v. National Bank of Commerce, 472 U. S. 713, 722 (1985). Accordingly, "[w]e look initially to state law to determine what rights the taxpayer has in the property the Government seeks to reach, then to federal law to determine whether the taxpayer's state-delineated rights qualify as 'property' or 'rights to property' within the compass of the federal tax lien legislation. " Drye v. United States, 528 U. S. 49, 58 (1999).

There's much much more in Justice O'Conner's Opinion, but the above extract should convey something of the flavor...

Message Edited by MattH on 02-22-2009 09:41 AM