Florida Tax Planning & Advisory Services

Written by Dr. Pellumb Kabashi, DBA, MBA, CES, CFE, EA Founder, Tax Expert Today LLC · Tax advisors, enrolled agents, CPAs, and attorneys · Serving clients in all 50 states

Tax Expert Today LLC is based right here in Naples, Florida, and we serve clients throughout the state and across the country. Dr. Pellumb Kabashi leads a multidisciplinary team of tax advisors, enrolled agents, CPAs, and attorneys federally licensed to represent clients before the IRS in all 50 states. Florida's lack of state income tax is a powerful advantage, but only if you plan correctly. We help individuals, business owners, and retirees navigate Florida's unique tax landscape and protect the benefits that drew you here in the first place.

Tax Expert Today LLC is based right here in Naples, Florida, and we serve clients throughout the state and across the country. Dr. Pellumb Kabashi leads a multidisciplinary team of tax advisors, enrolled agents, CPAs, and attorneys federally licensed to represent clients before the IRS in all 50 states. Florida’s lack of state income tax is a powerful advantage, but only if you plan correctly. We help individuals, business owners, and retirees navigate Florida’s unique tax landscape and protect the benefits that drew you here in the first place.

Florida’s No State Income Tax Advantage

Florida stands apart because it has no state income tax on individuals, S-corps, or partnerships. This alone is a reason thousands move here each year, but the advantage only works if your domicile is truly in Florida. We see clients who think they’re safe because they bought a home here or spend winters here, only to face aggressive audits from their former state claiming they’re still residents.

In our practice, we help clients understand the difference between domicile and residence. Domicile is your true, fixed home, while residence is where you physically are. For Florida purposes, what matters most is your domicile for income tax. A person can have multiple residences but only one domicile. If you’re coming from California, New York, Massachusetts, or another high-tax state, we work backward from your facts and circumstances to document why Florida is now your domicile.

The 183-day rule is a common misconception. There is no automatic “183 days and you’re a resident” rule for Florida. Instead, courts and the IRS look at where you maintain your permanent home, where your family lives, where you conduct your business, and where you have social, civic, and cultural ties. We help you build that record intentionally.

Homestead Exemption and Save Our Homes Cap

Florida’s homestead exemption protects a portion of your primary residence value from property tax assessment. More valuable is the Save Our Homes cap, which limits annual assessed value increases to 3 percent, even as your home’s market value soars. In hot markets like Naples, Sarasota, and Miami, this protection becomes enormous over time.

To qualify, your home must be your primary residence and you must have owned it on January 1 of the tax year you’re applying for. Many new residents don’t apply because they believe they’re not eligible, or they don’t know the deadline. Some clients own multiple properties and incorrectly think they can claim homestead on all of them, when the exemption applies only to your primary dwelling.

We help clients structure their property ownership to maximize homestead protection, especially when they own both a Florida residence and property elsewhere. We also advise clients who are considering selling their home or renting it out, since losing homestead exemption status for even one year can have long-term tax consequences once the Save Our Homes cap resets.

Florida’s homestead exemption is grounded in Article VII, Section 6 of the Florida Constitution, which provides a $25,000 exemption from assessed property value plus an additional $25,000 for non-school tax purposes on owner-occupied primary residences. The Save Our Homes amendment caps annual increases in assessed value at the lesser of 3% or the change in the consumer price index, providing long-term tax stability that’s particularly valuable in appreciating markets like Naples, Miami, and Tampa. The Florida Department of Revenue publishes the official rules and county-by-county procedures.

Florida Business Tax Structure

If you own a business in Florida, the tax landscape is simple and favorable. Sole proprietors and partners pay no state income tax. S-corp owners pay no state income tax. C-corporations pay a 5.5 percent corporate income tax, which is relatively low. Florida has no franchise tax, which many other states impose as an annual fee on business entities.

Sales tax is 6 percent at the state level, but counties can add their own rate (up to an additional 2 percent in some areas). Many clients moving from out of state are surprised by the complexity of sales tax nexus and multi-state sales tax compliance, especially those with remote customers or e-commerce businesses.

In our practice, we often advise clients on entity structure in light of Florida’s tax environment. A business owner from California might consider becoming an S-corp in Florida to eliminate state income tax, or keeping an LLC and filing as S-corp for federal purposes. A Texas-based client moving to Naples with an existing LLC might not need to change anything. The key is making sure your current structure is optimized for Florida’s specific rules, not just federal rules.

Snowbird Tax Planning

Many of our clients live in Florida part of the year and elsewhere the rest. Snowbirds moving south for winter, retirees splitting time between properties, and business owners managing geographic transitions all face the same question: where are you a resident for tax purposes?

The risk is high if you’re not careful. A person who spends seven months in Florida and five months in Massachusetts needs to document their domicile clearly, especially if they file taxes in both states or if Massachusetts tries to claim them as a resident. Some states are extremely aggressive in pursuing residents they believe were under-taxed.

We help snowbird clients create a documented plan for domicile that stands up to audit. This includes where they register vehicles, vote, obtain licenses, maintain a permanent home, and conduct financial affairs. For clients with substantial income, we often recommend a formal domicile opinion letter or detailed record-keeping strategy. For business owners, we examine where you manage your business, how often you visit your principal place of business, and whether you have significant employees or operations in your part-time state.

Estate Planning and Asset Protection

Florida has no state estate tax, which makes it attractive for wealth building and transfer planning. Additionally, Florida law offers strong creditor protection for homestead property, meaning a judgment creditor generally cannot force the sale of your primary residence to satisfy a debt (with limited exceptions for mortgages and property taxes).

Florida’s unlimited homestead exemption is unusual and powerful. Many states cap homestead protection at $500,000 or $1 million. Florida has no cap, so a $10 million home is protected the same way as a $500,000 home. This changes the calculus for high-net-worth individuals considering where to retire or relocate.

We work closely with estate planning attorneys to coordinate your tax plan with your estate plan. The combination of no state estate tax, strong homestead protection, and favorable trust laws makes Florida an excellent jurisdiction for estate settlement. We also help clients understand how a move to Florida affects their existing estate plan, especially if they have property in multiple states or if their heirs are scattered across different states.

Severing Out-of-State Tax Ties

Moving to Florida is more than buying property and changing your address. If you’re leaving a high-tax state like California or New York, you also need to document your change of tax residency carefully — and the higher your income, the more rigorously your former state’s tax authority will examine the timing and substance of that change.

We help clients build a pre-move tax plan and an audit-ready documentation file. If you’re leaving California, that typically means filing a clean part-year or final resident return (FTB Form 540 or 540NR), building a domicile timeline showing exactly when and how your residency changed, and ensuring records are consistent across your federal and California filings. If you’re leaving New York, similar documentation supports both the domicile test and the statutory residency (183-day) analysis.

Specifically, we help clients organize records covering:

– Sale or transition of the former primary residence
– Day-counting (days physically present in each state, by year)
– Where the family lives and where children attend school
– Location of bank accounts, brokerage accounts, and safe deposit boxes
– Voter registration, driver’s license, and professional license updates
– Business operations, ownership interests, and board roles in each state
– Charitable, civic, and religious affiliations
– Treatment by both states’ tax authorities (estimated payments, withholding, etc.)

The worst outcome is to move to Florida, set up a life here, and still have your former state’s tax department asserting you remained a tax resident. We help prevent that by building documentation from day one — the same file your former state’s audit division will request if they challenge your departure. This is especially important for clients with high income, significant assets, equity compensation, or active business interests in their former state.

Working with Tax Expert Today on Your Florida Plan

Florida’s tax advantages only deliver when your strategy, documentation, and execution are aligned. Our team of EAs, CPAs, and tax attorneys helps individuals, business owners, and high-net-worth families across the country navigate Florida’s residency rules, homestead exemption, and entity-level tax planning. Whether you’re planning a future move, already in Florida and refining your strategy, or facing a residency challenge from a former state, our full service offering covers tax planning, IRS resolution, estate and trust planning, and fractional CFO advisory — anchored by Naples-based personal service for clients across all 50 states.