How do I determine my state of residence for wills, living trusts, power of attorneys and taxes?

God bless you. I am sorry to hear about your cancer. If you have any specific questions to ask, I'm sure you'll get some pretty informative answers from the attorneys on this site. As a general matter, your estate will be probated in the place where you are *domiciled* when you pass away. It may be best to have your estate plan set up for that state. I agree with you, though, that a health care directive for each state would be a good idea. Consider spending some time with an estate planning attorney to go over these issues again soon.

I hope your treatments go well and that you are able to return successfully to Hawaii someday. Based on what you've described as your intent in coming to Georgia, it sounds like your domicile will remain Hawaii. That means that, in general, it would probably be better, as Mr. Pittman says, for your estate planning documents to be prepared with Hawaii's laws in mind. A Georgia Advance Directive for Health Care might be a good idea, however, if you'll be receiving treatment here. A person's "domicile" for estate planning purposes is that person's "permanent" home. If your intent is to remain a resident of Hawaii for most purposes and come to Georgia only for treatments, then you likely are not changing your domicile, only your place of temporary residence. It sounds like if you are able to move back home to Hawaii, you will do so. Factors reviewed to determine domicile are things such as: driver's license, address used as primary residence for insurance and tax purposes, location of church and social group affiliations, voter registration, and similar factors. Best wishes to you.

Your state of residence for your domicile (the place you call home) and for tax purposes may be two different things. Your domicile is the place that you call home and remains your domicile until you decide to choose a new one. For tax purposes, you may be subject to taxes in multiple states depending upon the type of tax and the location of your assets. Check the state taxing authority for information it requests to determine your tax domicile. You can prepare your will in either state, and it will be honored as long as it meets the strict requirements for a will in the state you sign it. If you claim Hawaii as your home, you can recite this in your will no matter in which state you sign. Your can also do the same with your trust. There may be advantages or disadvantages to using one state's trust laws over the other. You should consult an attorney to review this for you. You can have more than one power of attorney. I recommend you execute one power of attorney on each state's customary form in order to reduce the chance that it will be questioned by a financial institution. Although most states recognize properly executed healthcare directives, you should execute healthcare directives on the forms for each state where you might receive healthcare.

I am sorry to hear about your health. I am in basic agreement with Mr. Pittman and Ms. Disalvo about their analysis. Georgia has a pretty good health care directive form you can do for free (your will and POA should be done by a lawyer). Most hospitals have the Georgia form and you wil find it online on several sites including https://www.emoryhealthcare.org/patient-relations/pdfs/georgia-advance-directive2007.pdf and http://www.hhc.org/documents/English-GA-Advance-Directive-for-Health-Care_0.pdf . Having a health care directive in both states sounds smart to me.