Back in February, Steven E. Siebers and Emily Scheuring Jones wrote about Cain v. Hamer, a taxpayer friendly Illinois Appellate Court ruling. Cain effectively allowed snowbirds who spend time down south to continue to own their Illinois homes while being treated as nonresidents for Illinois income tax purposes. (A nonresident pays no Illinois tax on income from non-Illinois sources.)

Well, the Illinois Department of Revenue was not amused. In the August ISBA Trusts and Estates newsletter, Siebers and Jones report that in response to Cain, the IDR changed its regs to make it tougher for Illinoisans to qualify as nonresidents. Here's what the new regs provide:

1. An individual receiving an owner-occupied homestead exemption (see 35 ILCS 200/15-175) for Illinois property is presumed to be a resident of Illinois.
2. An individual who is an Illinois resident in one year is presumed to be a resident in the following year if (s)he is present in Illinois more days than (s)he is present in any other state.

The authors offer great advice in response, two key pieces of which are these: "1. Make sure your snowbird client does NOT claim the owner-occupied exemption...on the client’s Illinois real estate tax bill," and "2. Make sure that in the first year of non-residency your Illinois snowbird client does not spend more time in Illinois than any other state...." Read their article.