What is Home?

When I was younger, I never thought about my future in terms of who would get what after I died. It's morbid and we all want to think we're invincible. As I've gotten older, especially this past year, I've started thinking seriously about Black generational wealth.

I read a couple of hard-hitting articles about Black land being stolen through dirty tricks the white power structure deliberately put in place. I read about older Black people being systematically taken advantage of. I also saw wealthy Black celebrities pass away without proper plans in place, and witnessed the absolute chaos that ensued.

I may not have much, but it made me think—what can I learn and how can I do better? That's when I talked to my trusted financial advisor who, as always, came back to me with a rock-solid plan to grow my net worth while ensuring my heirs will have a foundation upon which to build.

Every so often, he takes a comprehensive inventory of all my assets and cash accounts, and does a detailed net worth projection over the next several decades. It ends up being more than 50 pages and I'm sure I'm one of the few people who reads it with a fine tooth comb.

Well, I read the most recent version and my jaw dropped when I hit the tax projection section.

I have a condo in a high tax city in a high tax state. I never really paid attention to it before because I'm where I have to live to do my job, so I don't have a choice. But what about in ten years? Twenty? I'll still have my mortgage and in a little over a decade and a half, my property tax abatement will expire, adding thousands more to my annual tax bill.

I started thinking hard about how I could eliminate this tax liability. The most obvious solution would be to sell my apartment, but what about my job? How do I pitch the idea of working remotely from a different state?

That's exactly what I was wrestling with when I asked my colleague, pretty randomly, if she had an estate attorney. She said she did, but then raised a fascinating question—where do I actually consider home? Typically, she explained, home is where the heart is. So you may work in one state, but your home, your heart, may be in another. The key is to spend less than 183 days in the state where you work.

I said, for ease, it was where I currently work.

Here's what happens when someone plants a seed in my head—it grows like wildfire. I'm not thinking about today or tomorrow, I'm thinking a year from now and beyond. That seed provided a perfect opening for me and a real solution to the tax issue I was struggling with.

I have a house in a different country. I have a condo in the United States. My parents live in another state. My job is one that I can do remotely on most days. By making me question where my home truly is, my colleague has provided the opening argument to my case for changing the location of my home. It's an argument she understands completely and could build a compelling case for when speaking to the higher ups.

Always listen carefully to people. There may be a little nugget that can completely change how you think.