Kirk W

I believe that you are thinking of the requirements to hold a driver's license, register a vehicle, or register to vote? It so, the same is true for the vast majority of states. Most states have physical address requirements for those functions and that address must be residential and not a business address. It's something to consider for any one going fulltime.

Texas has liability limits of 30/60/25, which break down to $30,000 per person of bodily injury liability, $60,000 per accident and $25,000 of property damage per accident, higher than most other states. While Texas auto insurance rates are above the national average, they are not one of the highest 5 states. The rates are influenced by the number and size of claims filed as well as things like extreme weather events and high crime rates. Rural areas tend to have lower rates than cities. As to the term of policies, some companies will write policies for 1 year while others limit to 6 months. I recently changed from Safeco who had annual policies to Progressive who will only write a 6 month policy. Some companies offer both and others only one or the other.

Norman, OK?

Emissions testing is only required in 7 specific counties in Ohio: Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Lorain, Medina, Portage, and Summit. If your vehicle is registered in one of these counties, you must pass an emissions test every two years to register it. Ohio's vehicle test program requires emissions testing for vehicles from four through 25 years old. Indiana Bureau of Vehicles says that registered in Lake and Porter counties are required to undergo emissions tests and tampering inspections every two years if they were manufactured after 1975 and have a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of 9,000 pounds or less.

We have 2 social security 1099's, my pension 1099, my 401k(RMD) 1099, 2 investment fund 1099's, and the last 2 years a W2 from my part-time job. I too use TurboTax and mine took me about 2 hours to do, mostly a matter of collecting the documents and scanning the paper ones. I usually have it ready to submit as soon as the IRS begins to accept electronic returns (this year Jan. 29) but this year I was almost a week later ad the last 1099 wasn't yet available. They have until the end of February to send them out but most of ours arrive before the end of January. Since we lived in WY for 18 years and have now been TX residents for 35 years, we have not files a state return in many years, which can complicate things. I have been doing our taxes on the computer since 1990 and have used both Turbo Tax and H&R Block software. Lately I have stayed with TurboTax for several reasons but either one is very easy to use and there are a host of others as well. Many retired people are eligible for free filing from the IRS as well if they are willing to do it themselves. The average fee for preparing Form 1040 with Schedule A to itemize personal deductions, and a state income tax return, was a flat fee of $323. The average fee for Form 1040 with the standard deduction, plus a state income tax return, was $220, according to Investopedia. Depending on which one a person chooses and what version of the program, tax software will usually cost between $50-100 and possibly as much as $150 for a business version.

It is actually a state law that sets the rules. There are only 13 states that have no safety or emissions inspections required by law. These states include Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Florida, Washington, and Wyoming. Vehicle Inspections by State

Last fall I celebrated the 42nd anniversary of my 39th birthday! 😏

While I am an advocate of fulltimers having an exit plan, I also believe that said plans should be kept flexible because one never knows what may have changed when the exit time comes. Like you, we sold the house believing that we would never buy another house but when health forced us to change our lifestyle we did buy a small home in an RVing community that was patterned after the Escapee co-ops, but with some significant differences. We then traveled part time out of that base but eventually sold it and moved into a senior citizen community, where we live today. I do believe that there is comfort & security in having an exit plan but that it should be kept loose and reviewed often.

I went back and added my age group to the poll. I wrote it with intention of the person making the post but if two people use the same ID I guess that they need to choose. I did consider a second question for a spouse or partner but the poll wouldn't allow a second question. At this point, it is running about as I might have guessed. Having been to many Escapades, I know that there are increasing numbers of younger members but they don't participate in this forum.

The discussion of owning property got me to wondering what sort of age mix we have on the forums today. I will share mine as I am currently 81 years old and my wife is 82. We have been RVers since the 1970's and members of the Escapees RV Club since 1998. Feel free to remain anonymous if you prefer but please do help us to understand who we are as a forum group.

Looking at the responses, I'm a little surprised to see that almost half of those responding do own at least some real property. I remember a very similar poll here back fore 2010 and wish that I had access to it because I believe that the numbers were much different then. The forum was far more active at that time and so the numbers of responders were much larger too. I am pretty sure that fewer than 1/3 of those replying then owned real property. Sadly, I do not believe that our group is very representative of the total Escapee membership or a cross-section of the fulltime community any more. There has been a huge increase in younger, still working members but very few of them contribute to these forums. I suspect that the results of this poll would be significantly different if we could gather a true cross-section of the Escapee membership and/or the total fulltime RV community. It is only a guess, but I suspect that the share who own property would also be quite different.

Or read the IRS publications on the subject. And the IRS also has a lot of assistance for tax payers if you choose to use it. Like many people, I was always slow to go to them because I didn't trust them. Eventually my wife worked in an accounting office where tax returns was a major part of the business and doing so discovered that professionals use the IRS help as a primary resource. And there is no charge for advice from the IRS. As Glen points out, keeping records is important if you should get called in or an audit. My parents were called in because the computer flagged then for the large amount given to their church and other charities, when compared to their gross income on 2 occasions. My mother always kept detailed records, hand written into a spiral notebook with the date, amount, and recipient of the donation. They were regular supporters of things ranging from their local church, to Boy Scouts, a children's home, a local teen center, and local disaster relief efforts. The IRS examiner looked closely at her record to be sure that it was kept over the course of the year and not all created just for the interview and once he was sure that it was legitimate it was accepted as accurate. Personally kept records are almost always accepted so long as they have been kept over the year and not created during audit preparation. They are pretty good at detecting faked records, as a former coworker of mine once discovered.

Keep in mind that with so few returns being examined, the fact that you were not challenged does not prove that everything you claimed as a deduction was acceptable under the law or the IRS rules.

Generally speaking the answer is no. IRS topic 511 and also Pub. 463 are what you need to consult but like most such publications, it isn't all that easy to understand and you won't find anything that actually covers your situation. In general, to be a deductible expense, the travel must be away from your tax home and for business purposes only. If you vacation while there, the expense is not deductible. At present, very few federal tax returns are audited by a person but all of them are run through a software program that compares deductions take to what are considered norms for other people of similar circumstance. A friend who is an IRS investigator tells me that travel expenses are on of the most likely areas to trigger further investigation. I should add that my IRS friend used to say that you can claim anything you chose but the IRS determines if they will accept your claimed deductions. So what are the odds of getting audited? Very low. Less than 1% of all individual income tax returns filed for the 2020 tax year faced an audit, according to the most recent data available from the IRS. That means about 1 in 500 tax returns are audited each year, according to CBS news.

I answered the poll based on our time as fulltimers, even though things have changed and we are no longer RVing. Today there are any still working fulltimers but this group seems to remain mostly retired. I was fortunate to have worked for a company that had a great, early retirement plan and was able to retire permanently at the age of 57. We went fulltime, selling the house and all that we could not carry with us and we never looked back. Retiring that early, neither social security or 401k money were available so we began to do RV volunteer positions that supplied a full hookup site and usually some other amenities as part of our budget control. I was given a pension with a "bridge to social security" by so doing we were able to live reasonably well and travel on the money available. About 5 years into our fulltime we began to both draw social security and I lost the bridge part of my pension. In our 12 years of fulltime RVing we did not own any real property and liked it that way because it simplifies life. After 10 years we began to look at acquiring some sort of real estate to park on and in year 11 we did purchase in a co-op community that was similar to the Escapee co-ops but not part of that system. This is another question with no single answer. To be the best possible investment the real estate must be in the right location and circumstances. That is even more true if it has a home base since you might change your mind about where you wish to settle once you stop RVing. If you buy some raw land in an area that will soon be developed, or where they discover minerals, or some other trigger it will prove to be wonderful. On the other hand, if you buy property with a house and a natural disaster should happen, then not so much. We invested the proceeds from the sale of our house when we left it and then used that money to buy a home when we left the fulltime lifestyle. For us, the freedom from real property was part of what made life so great. It meant that we had no one place that had to return unless we chose to do so. We did have an annual doctor visit due to Pam's continuing prescription medicines, but we made those appointments at our conveience.