Thanks for the replies and links. I am on the 756 fleet so mostly transcons. I have no residency whatsoever in CA and my flight time in CA is no where near 50% so sounds like I'm CA tax free.. Thanks guys

The Franchise Tax Board Will try to tell you that you owe money...at least, based on my experience.

I was SFO-based and lived on the other side of the country as a new-hire. After 9-11 and I got furloughed, they tried to tell me I owed taxes from previous years.

One letter to the FTB stopped it. But they will try to scare people into paying.

Arizona did the same thing fifteen years after I finished Air Force Pilot training there (as a non-resident).

Where are you located? I tried to make CA work because my wife loves it there.... bottom line is you can’t touch a decent house in a good school district within an hour of the airport for less than $1m.

You know those state tax write offs on your federal taxes are now capped st $10k right? I’ll be curious to hear your tune this time next year.

Lots of nice communities in the greater Sac area, especially NE in Placer county. Two hours to the coast, 90 mins to Tahoe, very good schools and houses you’d want to live in just north of $500k.

The Roseville/Rocklin/Granite Bay area is lousy with airline/Beale pilots. Other options include the Fairfield/Vacaville/Green Valley areas which are closer (but not as nice, IMHO), and seem like a Travis retirement community.

Wait tell 2018 when all those deductions are capped at 10k.

No, you don't have to pay CA state income taxes. Here's the text of the applicable federal tax statute.

"The applicable federal law for taxation of air carrier employees (pilots and flight attendants) is 49 USC section 40116(f).



(f)Pay of Air Carrier Employees.— (1) In this subsection— (A) “pay” means money received by an employee for services.

(B) “State” means a State of the United States, the District of Columbia, and a territory or possession of the United States.

(C) an employee is deemed to have earned 50 percent of the employee’s pay in a State or political subdivision of a State in which the scheduled flight time of the employee in the State or subdivision is more than 50 percent of the total scheduled flight time of the employee when employed during the calendar year.


(2) The pay of an employee of an air carrier having regularly assigned duties on aircraft in at least 2 States is subject to the income tax laws of only the following: (A) the State or political subdivision of the State that is the residence of the employee.

(B) the State or political subdivision of the State in which the employee earns more than 50 percent of the pay received by the employee from the carrier.


(3) Compensation paid by an air carrier to an employee described in subsection (a) in connection with such employee’s authorized leave or other authorized absence from regular duties on the carrier’s aircraft in order to perform services on behalf of the employee’s airline union shall be subject to the income tax laws of only the following: (A) The State or political subdivision of the State that is the residence of the employee.

(B) The State or political subdivision of the State in which the employee’s scheduled flight time would have been more than 50 percent of the employee’s total scheduled flight time for the calendar year had the employee been engaged full time in the performance of regularly assigned duties on the carrier’s aircraft. "

Yes and no. I live in Sac now, used to live in the foothills on acreage (and miss it dearly). When people ask me how my drive is, I can only respond that sometimes it’s 1.5 hours and sometimes it’s 4 hours.

The places are great, but the times...if you want to get somewhere when other people do, too, you can add an hour to your drive time. (7a show yesterday, left the house at 430...barely made it. Leave at 4, though, and I’m there at 545).

Prices are also rapidly on the rise. Just last week my wife was saying she didn’t think we could ever get $1700 a month rent for our 1k’ sq 2/1, and Sunday our neighbor’s house, same house, went up for $1850. The good (better?) deals are drying up fast as people get priced out of the Bay Area.



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You have no issues at all. CA can’t touch you.

I'm in LA. Yes, houses are expensive, but it's more of an investment than a cost. As long as you can afford the mortgage payment, and your mortgage payment minus principal is somewhat comparable to what you might pay in rent, then you're good. I've generated far more wealth just owning my house in CA than I ever did in Texas.

For reference, I bought my house for 650k about 2 years ago (it's probably worth ~850k now).

I do. It seems like the GOP tax bill will unfortunately raise taxes on most pilots (Losing union dues deduction, losing per diem deduction, losing personal exemption deduction, higher rates for 150-200k single filers, and the 10k cap on the SALT deduction).

I will actually be ok. Right now I write-off about 11k in income tax and about 7k in property tax. I prepaid 3.5k of my property tax for next year, so I'm only losing a small amount of write off in 2018.

Likely CA will either switch some of its income tax to a payroll deduction (which is tax deductible by the employer), or allow you to get a 1:1 state tax break if you donate to state charity. There are several bills in the legislature to make this happen right now.

I also don't think the GOP stands a chance at holding the house in 2018, or the white house and senate in 2020. So I'm confident man of those deductions will come back.

I moved to the Bay Area in 2014 after 14 yrs of commuting. I'm leaving in April. I'd rather commute again than stay here. Between the traffic, housing costs and exceedingly high cost of living it's not worth it to me. I can't wait to leave.

I'm single w/ no kids and I'm not willing to pay these taxes for the next 22 yrs of my working life. The Bay Area is crowded, very crowded and extremely expensive. My 2 bedroom apartment 35 minutes north of the city is 3K/month. Houses here start around 800K if they need quite a bit of work. If they're move in ready, you're looking at a million to start. All for the the privilege of giving California 9.3%, 1.25% property taxes (plus 30K "mud bond" if it's new construction) and soul crushing traffic.

You'll need to really love it to justify the cost in my opinion. My auto insurance is more than double what it was in my home state. Sure, it's a nice looking place but if you want to go somewhere cool on the weekend, you'd better pack a lunch because the traffic is simply nasty. Everything is crowded on weekends when the city folk head to the country. I live in southern Sonoma County and on the weekends you'd swear the population has doubled.

Just google "why I'm leaving the Bay Area" and read a bit.